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GIVEN  BY 

The  Publisher 


THE    JEWS    IN    THE 
EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 


THB  AMERICAN  JEWISH   COMMITTEE 

NEW  YORK 

1916 


friif.n  hy  VubUslwr. 

FEB  2S  M6 


THE  AMERICAN   JEWISH   COMMITTEE 

Officers 

Louis  Marshall,  President 

JuLL\.N  W.  Mack.  1     -^ •     t,     -i    . 

\     Vice- Presidents 
Jacob  H.  Hollander,    J 

Isaac  W.  Bernheim,  Treasurer 
Executive  Committee 

CYRUS  ABLER,  Chairman,        -        -        -  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

ISAAC  W.  BERNHEIM,         -        -        .  .   Louisville,  Ky. 

HARRY  CUTLER, Providence,  R.  I. 

SAMUEL  DORF, New  York,  N.  Y. 

JACOB  H.  HOLLANDER,          -        -        -  Baltimore,  Md. 

JULIAN  W.  MACK, Chicago,  III. 

JUDAH  L.  MAGNES,         -        .        .        -  New  York,  N.  Y. 

LOUIS  MARSHALL,       .        -        -        .  New  York,  N.  Y. 

JULIUS  ROSENWALD,      -        -        -        -  Chicago,  III. 

JACOB  H.  SCHIFF,        ....  New  York,  N.  Y. 

ISADOR  SOBEL,        -        -        -        -        -  -          Erie,  Pa. 

OSCAR  S.  STRAUS,       ....  New  York,  N.  Y. 

CYRUS  L.  SULZBERGER,         -        -        -  New  York,  N.  Y. 

MAYER  SULZBERGER,        -        -        -  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

A.  LEO  WEIL, Pittsburg,  Pa. 


OFFICE: 
356  Second  Avenue,  New  York  City 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 7 

RUSSIA 

Jewish  Disabilities  in  Normal  Times 19 

the  pale  of  settlement 20 

Recent  "abolition"  act  a  half-way  measure, 
dictated  by  military  necessity. 

OTHER  RESTRICTIONS 31 

1.    Residence  restrictions. 2.    Occupational 

restrictions. 3.  Property  restrictions. 4.  Fiscal 

burdens. — 5.  Educational  restrictions. — 6.  Military 
burdens. 

The  War  and  the  Jews 36 

outbreak  of  war 36 

Manifestations  of  loyalty. Jewish  patriotism. 

THE   WAR   IN   POLAND 41 

Renaissance  of  Polish  hopes. — Polish  anti-Se- 
mitism.— Spy  stories  instigated  by  Poles,  accepted 
and  circulated  by  Russian  military  authorities. 

MILITARY  REPRESSIONS 66 

Extraordinary  conduct  of  military  censor. — 
Stifling  of  Jewish  press  and  speech. — Expulsions. — 
Demand  for  hostages. — Widespread  misery. — Un- 
fair administration  of  relief. 

The  People  vs.  The  Russian  Government.  . .  70 
Anti-Jewish  policy  of  the  Government  not  ap- 
proved by  the  people. — Duma  protests. — Resolu- 
tions of  Constitutional  Democratic  Party. — 
Protests  of  Municipalities,  Public  Officials,  Etc. 
— Protests  of  Trade  and  Professional  Organi- 
zations.— Protests  of  Writers  and  Publicists. 

OTHER  COUNTRIES 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 84 

Russian  atrocities  in  Galicia. 

ROUMANIA 89 

PALESTINE 93 

APPENDIX 

1.  Report    of    Russian    Jewish    Relief    Committee.  98 

2.  Speech  of  Deputy   Friedman    in  the  Duma Ill 

3.  Speech  of  Baron  Rosen  in  Imperial  Council 117 


THE  JEWS  m  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 


INTRODUCTION 

Of  all  the  people  that  have  suffered  deeply  from  the 
present  war,  none  have  borne  a  greater  burden  than  the 
Jews — in  physical  and  economic  loss,  in  moral  and  spiritual 
torment. 

Jews  are  today  fighting  each  other  in  all  the  armies 
of  Europe.  Russia  alone  has  over  350,000  Jewish  soldiers; 
Austria  has  over  50,000;  altogether  there  are  probably 
one-half  million  Jews  in  the  ranks  of  the  fighting  armies. 

The  Jews  are  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  war's  burdens, 
not  only  on  the  field  of  battle,  where  they  suffer  with 
the  rest  of  the  world,  but  also  in  their  homes,  where 
they  have  been  singled  out,  by  their  peculiar  geographic, 
political  and  economic  position,  for  disaster  surpassing 
that  of  all  others. 

When  the  war  broke  out,  one-half  of  the  Jewish 
population  of  the  world  was  trapped  in  a  corner  of  Eastern 
Europe  that  is  absolutely  shut  off  from  all  neutral  lands 
and  from  the  sea.  Russian  Poland,  where  over  two 
million  Jews  lived,  is  in  a  salient.  South  of  it  is  Galicia, 
the  frontier  province  of  Austria.  Here  lived  another 
million  Jews.  Behind  Russian  Poland  are  the  fifteen 
Russian  provinces,  which,  together  with  Poland,  con- 
stitute the  Pale  of  Jewish  Settlement.  Here  Hved  another 
four  million  Jews. 

Thus  seven  million  Jews — a  population  exceeding 
that  of  Belgium  by  one  milhon — have  borne  the  brimt 
of  the  war.    Behind  them  was  Holy  Russia,  closed  to 


8  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

them  by  the  May  Laws  of  1881.  In  front  were  hostile 
Germany  and  Austria.  To  the  south  was  unfriendly 
Roumania.  They  were  overwhelmed  where  they  stood; 
and  over  their  bodies  crossed  and  recrossed  the  German 
armies  from  the  west,  the  Russian  armies  from  the  east 
and  the  Austrian  armies  from  the  south.  True,  all  the 
peoples  of  this  area  suffered  ravage  and  pillage  by  the 
war,  but  their  sufferings  were  in  no  degree  comparable 
to  those  of  the  Jews.  The  contending  armies  found  it 
politic,  in  a  measure,  to  court  the  good  will  of  the  Poles, 
Ruthenians  and  other  races  in  this  area.  These  sustained 
only  the  necessary  and  unavoidable  hardships  of  war. 
But  the  Jews  were  friendless,  their  religion  proscribed. 
In  this  medieval  region  all  the  religious  fanaticism 
of  the  Russians,  the  chauvinism  of  the  Poles,  combined 
with  the  blood  lusts  liberated  in  all  men  by  the  war — 
all  these  fierce  hatreds  were  sluiced  into  one  torrent  of 
passion  which  overwhehned  the  Jews. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  were  forced  from  their  homes 
on  a  day's  notice,  the  more  fortunate  being  packed  and 
shipped  as  freight — the  old,  the  sick  and  insane,  men, 
women  and  children,  shuttled  from  one  province  to 
another,  side-tracked  for  days  without  food  or  help 
of  any  kind — the  less  fortunate  driven  into  the  woods 
and  swamps  to  die  of  starvation.  Jewish  towns  were 
sacked  and  burned  wantonly.  Hundreds  of  Jews  were 
carried  off  as  hostages  into  Germany,  Austria  and 
Russia.  Orgies  of  lust  and  torture  took  place  in 
public  in  the  light  of  day.  There  are  scores  of  villages 
where  not  a  single  woman  was  left  inviolate.  Women, 
old  and  young,  were  stripped  and  knouted  in  the  public 
squares.  Jews  were  burned  alive  in  synagogues  where 
they  had  fled  for  shelter.  Thousands  were  executed  on 
the  flimsiest  pretext  or  from  sheer  purposeless  cruelty. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

These  Jews,  unlike  the  Belgians,  have  no  England  to 
fly  to.  The  sympathy  of  the  outside  world  is  shut  off 
from  them.  They  have  not  the  consolation  of  knowing 
that  they  are  fighting  for  their  own  hearths,  or  even  for 
military  glory  or  in  the  hope  of  a  possible  reward  or  in- 
demnity. The  only  thought  they  cherish  is  that  after 
the  struggle  shall  be  over  they  may  at  last  achieve  those 
elementary  rights  denied  to  no  other  people,  the  right 
to  live  and  move  about  freely  in  the  land  of  their  birth 
or  adoption,  to  educate  their  children,  to  earn  a 
livelihood,  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  conscience. 

RUSSU 

Nearly  half  of  the  Jewish  population  of  the  world 
lives  in  Russia,  in  the  immediate  area  of  active  hostilities, 
congested  in  cities,  which  are  the  first  point  of  attack. 
The  dreadful  position  of  the  Jews  of  Russia  in  normal 
times  is  well  known.  Forbidden  to  live  outside  of  the  en- 
larged Ghetto,  known  as  the  Pale  of  Settlement;  burdened 
with  special  taxes;  denied  even  the  scant  educational 
privileges  enjoyed  by  the  rest  of  the  population;  harried 
by  a  corrupt  police,  a  hostile  Government  and  an  un- 
friendly populace — in  brief,  economically  degraded  and 
politically  outlawed — their  condition  represented  the 
extreme  of  misery.  It  v/as  the  openly  expressed  policy 
of  the  reactionaries  who  ruled  Russia  to  solve  the  Jewish 
question  by  ridding  the  country  of  its  Jews.  ''One-third 
will  accept  the  Greek  Church ;  one-third  will  emigrate  to 
America;  and  one-third  will  die  of  starvation  in  Russia'^ — 
so  ran  the  cynical  sajdng.  Some  did  abjure  their  faith, 
tens  of  thousands  did  starve  in  Russia  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  did  emigrate  to  America. 


10         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

Loyalty  of  Russian  Jews 

Then  came  the  war.  The  Jews  saw  therein  an  oppor- 
tunity to  show  the  Christian  population  that  in  spite 
of  all  the  persecutions  of  the  past  they  were  ready  to 
forget  their  tragic  history  and  to  begin  life  anew  in  a 
united  and  regenerated  Russia.  Thousands  of  Jewish 
young  men  who  had  been  forced  to  leave  Russia  to 
secure  the  education  which  their  own  country  denied 
them  returned  voluntarily  to  the  colors  even  though 
they  knew  that  all  hope  of  preferment  and  promotion 
v/as  closed  to  them.  On  the  field  of  battle  the  Jewish 
soldiers  displayed  courage  and  intelligence  which  won 
the  respect  of  their  fighting  comrades  and  gained  for 
hundreds  of  them  the  much  desired  cross  of  St.  George, 
granted  for  distinguished  valor  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy;  while  those  who  remained  at  home  opened  and 
equipped  hospitals  for  wounded  soldiers  without  distinc- 
tion of  race  or  creed,  contributed  generously  to  all  public 
funds,  and,  in  brief,  gave  themselves  and  their  possessions 
unsparingly  to  the  Russian  cause. 

It  appeared  at  first  as  though  the  long  desired  union 
with  the  Russian  people  was  about  to  be  realized.  But 
it  soon  developed  that  the  chains  which  bound  the  Jews 
of  Russia  to  their  past  could  not  be  broken.  Forces 
which  they  could  not  possibly  control  doomed  them 
to  the  greatest  tragedy  in  their  history.  The  Pale  in 
which  they  lived  was  Polish  in  origin  and  population. 
Poles  and  Jews  were  fellow  victims  of  the  Russian  op- 
pressor; but  instead  of  being  united  by  the  common 
bond  of  suffering,  they  were  separated  by  religious  and 
racial  differences  and  above  all  by  dissension  deliberately 
fostered  among  them  by  the  Russian  rulers  until  it  de- 
veloped into  uncontrollable  hate. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

Russian  Atrocities 

Immediately  before  the  war  the  struggle  had  assumed 
its  bitterest  form — that  of  an  unrelenting  boycott  waged 
against  the  Jews.  When  the  war  broke  out  the  political 
status  of  the  Poles  changed  overnight.  Both  the  Russian 
and  the  German  armies  found  it  politic  to  cultivate 
the  good  will  of  the  Polish  population.  Many  Poles 
seized  the  opportunity  to  gratify  personal  animosity, 
religious  bigotry  or  chauvinistic  mania  by  denouncing 
the  Jews,  now  to  the  one  invader  and  now  to  the  other, 
as  spies  and  traitors.  In  Germany  the  animus  of  the 
attacks  was  to  some  extent  uncovered  and  the  lies 
refuted.  But  in  Russia  they  found  fertile  soil.  The 
Russian  military  machine  had  met  with  defeat  at  the 
hands  of  the  Germans.  <'To  exonerate  themselves  in  the 
eyes  of  their  own  people  the  military  camarilla  eagerly 
seized  the  pretext  so  readily  furnished  them  by  the 
Poles  and  unloaded  the  burden  of  their  ill-fortune 
upon  the  helpless  shoulders  of  the  Jew.^^;Men,  women, 
even  children  were  executed  without  '^ the  shadow  of 
evidence  or  the  formality  of  a  trial.  Circumstantial 
stories  of  Jewish  treachery,  invented  by  the  Poles,  were 
accepted  as  the  truth  and  circulated  freely  through  the 
Russian  press  and  on  the  local  government  bulletin 
boards;  but  when  official  investigation  proved  these 
stories  false  in  every  particular,  the  publication  of  the 
refutation  was  discouraged  by  the  censorship.  The 
authorities  gave  the  troops  a  free  hand  to  loot  and 
ravage,  even  encouraging  them  by  the  publication  of 
orders  which  officially  denounced  all  Jews  as  spies  and 
traitors.  The  result  was  a  series  of  outrages  unprece- 
dented even  in  Russia.  A  million  Jews  were  driven  from 
their  homes  in  a  state  of  absolute  destitution. 


12         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Protest  of  Liberal  Russia 

All  of  the  liberal  elements  of  Russia  protested  against 
this  campaign  of  extermination,  but  were  powerless  in 
the  face  of  the  military  Government.  Hundreds  of 
municipal  bodies,  trade  and  professional  organizations, 
writers,  publicists  and  priests,  petitioned  the  civil  govern- 
ment to  admit  the  Jews  to  human  equality  or  at  least 
to  suspend  its  policy  of  persecution.  These  memorials, 
together  with  the  speeches  delivered  in  the  Duma,  con- 
stitute a  body  of  evidence  from  non-Jewish  sources, 
which  must  condemn  the  Russian  Government  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world.     (See  pages  70-83;  117-120.) 

GALICIA 

During  the  ten  months  of  the  Russian  occupation 
of  Gahcia  the  Jews  of  that  section  suffered  even  more 
severely  than  did  the  Jews  who  dwelt  in  the  Russian 
Pale.  For  here  the  Jews  were  the  subjects  of  the  enemy 
and  no  pretext  was  needed  for  their  maltreatment.  The 
Ruthenians  and  Poles  who  occupied  the  land  were  friendly 
to  Russia,  which  promised  them  independence  and  power. 
<But  Russia  could  expect  nothing  from  the  Jews  of 
Galicia,  for  they  were  already  in  the  possession  of  rights 
and  liberties  not  enjoyed  by  the  Jews  of  Russia,  and 
the  weight  of  the  Russian  invasion  fell  upon  them 
mercilessly^  Here  thousands  of  Russian  Jewish  soldiers 
were  forced  to  give  up  their  lives  in  an  attempt  to  impose 
upon  the  free  Jews  of  Gaiicia  the  servitude  from  which 
they  themselves  so  ardently  longed  to  escape  in  Russia. 
They  were  forced  to  witness  the  desecration  by  their 
Russian  companions-in-arms  of  synagogues,  the  outrage 
of  Jewish  women  and  the  massacre  of  innocent  and 
helpless  civilians  of  their  own  faith. 


INTRODUCTION  13 


ROUMANIA 


Though  Roumania  is  not  yet  a  belligerent,  some  of 
the  Jews  of  that  country  have  been  vitally  affected  by 
the  war.  In  July  of  1915,  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior 
issued  a  general  order  expelling  the  Jews  of  the  towns 
near  the  Austro-Hungarian  frontier  into  the  interior. 
Though  this  order  was  later  alleged  to  have  been  de- 
signed to  prevent  the  operations  of  Jewish  grain  specu- 
lators from  Bukowina,  many  Jews  who  had  resided  in  the 
border  towns  for  generations  were    summarily  expelled. 

This  action  of  the  Government  was  bitterly  criticized 
by  the  Hberal  press  and  in  a  memorial  addressed  to  the 
King  by  the  League  of  Native-born  Jews,  and  the 
order  was  finally  revoked. 

Whether  the  present  Balkan  situation  may  or  may 
not  result  in  the  entrance  of  Roumania  among  the  bel- 
ligerent nations  there  is  no  doubt  that  upon  the  ter- 
mination of  hostilities  the  question  of  Roimiania's 
treatment  of  the  Jews  should  be  reopened. 

PALESTINE 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  Palestine  contained, 
according  to  rehable  estimates,  about  100,000  Jews, 
some  of  whom  were  economically  independent  ag- 
riculturists, but  the  great  majority  of  whom  were 
aged  pilgrims  dependent  upon  their  relatives  and 
the  good-will  offerings  of  their  pious  co-religionists  in 
Europe.  The  war  cut  them  off  completely  both  from 
the  markets  of  Europe  and  from  their  relatives  and 
friends;  nearly  the  entire  Jewish  population  was  thus 
left  destitute.  Their  position  was  further  aggravated  by 
the  severity  with  which  Turkey,  upon  her  entrance  into 
the  war  as  an  ally  of  the  Central  Powers,  treated  the 


14         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

nationals  of  hostile  countries.  About  8,000  Jews  who 
declined  to  become  Turkish  subjects  were  either  expelled 
or  departed  voluntarily. 

JEWS  IN  OTHER  BELLIGERENT  COUNTRIES 

In  all  the  countries  where  the  Jews  have  heretofore 
enjoyed  freedom  there  has  been  no  special  Jewish  problem 
during  this  war.  The  Jews  have  identified  themselves  com- 
pletely with  the  lands  of  their  birth  or  adoption,  and  have 
shared  the  trials  and  glories  of  the  peoples  among  whom 
their  lot  was  cast. 

•  In  England,  the  Jewish  population,  according  to 
estimates  prepared  by  Lord  Rothschild,  furnished  more 
than  its  share  of  recruits  to  the  British  army,  its  quota 
of  17,000  comprising  about  eight  and  a  half  per  cent, 
of  the  total  Jewish  population  as  compared  with  the  six 
per  cent,  furnished  by  the  non-Jewish  population.  The 
Lord  Chief  Justice,  Baron  Reading,  a  Jew,  mobilized 
the  financial  resources  of  the  country  and  was  called  upon 
to  head  the  Anglo-French  commission  which  negotiated 
the  $500,000,000  credit  secured  in  the  United  States. 
Lord  Rothschild  is  treasurer  of  the  Red  Cross  organization. 
Hon.  Herbert  Samuels  is  a  member  of  the  Coalition 
cabinet.  A  Jewish  battalion  organized  by  Palestinian 
fugitives  rendered  exceptional  service  to  the  allies  in  the 
Gallipoli  Peninsula.  Many  rewards,  including  the  be- 
stowal of  Victoria  Crosses  and  promotions,  are  listed  in 
the  Anglo-Jewish  press  every  week. 

In  Germany  the  Jews,  although  without  complete 
social  privileges,  have  borne  their  full  share  of  the 
burdens  of  war.  To  Herr  Ballin,  the  head  of  the  mercantile 
marine,  was  given  the  task  of  organizing  the  national 
food   supply,   and   other   Jev/s   have   been   prominently 


INTRODUCTION  15 

identified  with  every  department  of  the  industrial  mobil- 
ization of  the  country.  In  France  and  Italy,  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Turkey,  Jews  are  to  be  found  in  the 
ministerial  cabinets,  in  command  of  troops  in  the  field, 
and  prominent  in  charge  of  the  medical  service  of  the 
armies. 


Thus  the  present  war  has  again  demonstrated  the 
great  truth  that,  in  times  of  struggle  as  in  times  of  peace, 
the  Jews  constitute  a  most  valuable  asset  to  those  nations 
that  accept  them  as  an  integral  part  of  their  population 
and  permit  them  to  develop  freely,  but  wherever  an  auto- 
cratic government  demorahzes  its  people  by  confronting 
them  with  the  spectacle  of  an  unprotected  minority 
denied  all  human  rights,  the  government  itself  feels  the 
reaction  and  the  moral  tone  of  the  nation  is  thereby 
impaired. 


RUSSIA 


NOTE  ON  SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 

For  the  purposes  of  this  report  it  has  been  deemed  advisable  to 
select,  from  the  mass  of  material  available  upon  the  present  status 
of  the  Jews  in  Russia,  only  evidence  based  upon: 

1.  Official  and  semi-official  reports  of  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment published  in  its  official  daily  newspaper,  "Pravitel- 
stvenny  Viestnik,"  in  its  semi-official  organ,  "Novoe 
Vremya,"  or  in  its  several  military  organs. 

2.  Debates  and  Proceedings  in  the  Imperial  Duma  and 
in  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  particularly  evidence  fur- 
nished by  non-Jewish  deputies  or  evidence  of  Jewish  depu- 
ties that  has  passed  unchallenged  or  has  been  challenged 
unsuccessfully  by  the  Right  benches. 

3.  Statements  in  the  Liberal  Russian  press  and  the 
Jewish  press  published  in  Russia,  all  of  which  have  been 
rigorously  censored. 

4.  Protests  and  manifestoes  of  non-Jewish  organiza- 
tions, parties  and  leaders  against  the  anti-Jewish  policy  of  the 
government.  These  protests  have  been  made  publicly  and 
have  passed  unchallenged  by  the  Russian  Government. 

In  brief,  the  present  report  is  based  exclusively  upon  evidence 
furnished  by  the  Russian  government  itself,  officially  in  its  own 
press,  or  countenanced  by  reason  of  the  revision  apphed,  through 
its  military  and  civil  censorship,  to  the  opposition  press,  or  in  public 
speeches  and  declarations  that  have  passed  the  government  benches 
in  the  imperial  legislative  chambers  imchallenged. 


RUSSIA 

INTRODUCTION 

Russia  acquired  the  great  bulk  of  her  Jewish  popula- 
tion through  the  partitions  of  Poland,  from  1773  to  1795. 
Strongly  medieval  in  outlook  and  organization  as  Russia 
was  at  that  time,  she  treated  the  Jews  with  the  exceptional 
harshness  which  the  medieval  principle  and  policy 
sanctioned  and  required.  By  confining  them  to  those 
provinces  where  they  happened  to  live  at  the  time  of  the 
partitions,  she  created  a  Ghetto  greater  than  any  known 
to  the  Middle  Ages;  and  by  imposing  restrictions  upon 
the  right  to  live  and  travel  even  within  this  Ghetto,  she 
has  virtually  converted  it  into  a  penal  settlement,  where 
six  million  human  beings  guilty  only  of  adherence  to 
the  Jewish  faith  are  compelled  to  five  out  their  lives 
in  squalor  and  misery,  in  constant  terror  of  massacre, 
subject  to  the  caprice  of  police  officials  and  a  corrupt  ad- 
ministration— in  short,  without  legal  right  or  social  status. 

Only  twice  within  the  last  century  have  efforts  been 
made  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Russia;  and 
each  interval  of  relief  was  followed  by  a  period  of  greater 
and  more  cruel  repression.  The  first  was  during  the  reign 
of  Alexander  II;  but  his  assassination  in  1881  resulted 
in  the  complete  domination  of  Russia  by  the  elements 
of  reaction,  which  immediately  renewed  the  persecution 
pohcy.  The  "May  laws''  of  Ignatieff  (1882)  which 
enmesh  the  Jews  to  this  day,  were  the  immediate  product 
of  this  regime.  The  second  period,  a  concomitant  of 
the  abortive  revolution  of  1904-5,  was  followed  by  a 
*^pogro7n  policy"  of  unprecedented  severity  which 
lasted  until  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war. 

19 


20         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

THE  PALE  OF  SETTLEMENT 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  number  of  Jews  in 
the  Russian  Empire  was  estimated  at  six  milhon  or  more, 
comprising  fully  half  of  the  total  Jewish  population  of 
the  world.  Ninety-five  per  cent,  of  these  six  million 
people  were  confined  by  law  to  a  limited  area  of  Russia, 
known  as  the  Pale  of  Settlement,  consisting  of  the  fifteen 
Governments  of  Western  and  Southwestern  Russia,  and 
the  ten  Governments  of  Poland,  much  of  which  territory 
is  now  under  the  German  occupation.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, residence  within  the  Pale  was  further  restricted 
to  such  an  extent  that  territorially  the  Jews  were  per- 
mitted to  live  in  only  one  two-thousandth  part  of  the 
Russian  Empire.*  No  Jew  was  permitted  to  step  outside 
this  Pale  unless  he  belonged  to  one  of  a  few  privileged 
classes.  Some  half-privileged  Jews  might,  with  effort, 
obtain  special  passports  for  a  limited  period  of  residence 
beyond  the  Pale;  but  the  great  majority  could  not  even 
secure  this  privilege  for  any  period  whatsoever.  A  tre- 
mendous mass  of  special,  restrictive  legislation  converted 
the  Pale  into  a  kind  of  prison  with  six  million  inmates, 
guarded  by  an  army  of  corrupt  and  brutal  jailers. 

The  Recent  "Abolition"  of  the  Pale 

In  August,  1915,  the  Council  of  Ministers  issued 
a  decree  permitting  the  Jews  of  the  area  affected  by  the 
war  to  move  into  the  interior  of  Russia.  This  act  has 
been  supposed  in  some  quarters  to  constitute  the  virtual 
abolition  of  the  Pale,  this  interpretation  being  chiefly 
attributable  to  the  extensive  publicity  given  the  measure 
by  the  Russian  government;  but  the  evidence,  oflacial 
and  otherwise,  clearly  indicates  that  far  from  being  a 


*"Leffal  Sufferings  of  the  Jews  in  Russia";  edited  by  Lucien  Wolf.     London, 
T.  Fiaher  Unwin,  1912. 


THE  "ABOLITION"  OF  THE  PALE  21 

generous  act  of  a  liberal  Government  toward  an  oppressed 
people,  it  is  in  reality  only  a  temporary  expedient,  dictated 
mainly  by  military  necessity  and  partly  by  the  need  of 
a  foreign  loan;  it  is  evident  that  it  was  granted  grudg- 
ingly, with  galling  limitations  which  served  to  emphasize 
the  servile  state  of  the  Jews;  that  it  is  in  practice  ignored 
or  evaded  at  the  convenience  of  the  local  authorities; 
and  that  it  has  been  utilized,  it  not  designed,  to  mislead 
the  public  opinion  of  the  world.  ^-^ 

Evidence  in  support  of  this  view  will  now  be  considered: 

1.  It  is  a  temporary  measure  dictated  by  military 
necessity.  It  does  not  remove  any  of  the  disabilities 
to  which  the  Jews  in  Russia  are  legally  subject. 

This  is  admitted  officially  in  the  Minute  of  the  Council 
of  Ministers  for  August  4  (17),  1915,  at  which  session 
the  abolition  decree  was  promulgated.  This  Minute 
reads  as  follows: 

"It  has  been  observed,  of  late,  in  connection  with 
the  military  situation,  that  Jews  are  migrating  en  masse 
from  the  theatre  of  war  and  are  gathering  in  certain 
interior  governments  of  the  Empire.  This  is  ex- 
plained, on  the  one  hand,  by  the  endeavor,  on  the 
part  of  the  Jewish  population,  to  depart  in  good 
time  from  the  localities  threatened  by  the  enemy, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  order,  issued  by  our 
military  authorities,  to  clear  certain  localities  in  the 
line  of  the  enemy's  advance.  The  further  concen- 
tration of  these  refugees,  whose  number  has  been 
growing  ever  greater,  in  the  limited  area  now  avail- 
able to  them,  is  causing  unrest  among  the  local  native 
population  and  may  lead  to  alarming  consequences 
in  the  form  of  wholesale  disorders.  This  excessive 
accumulation   of   Jewish   refugees   also   impedes   the 


22         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Government  seriously  in  its  efforts  to  provide  food, 
work  and  medical  attention  for  them.  Under  these 
circumstances,  deeming  it  urgently  necessary  to  take 
prompt  measures  to  avert  undesirable  possibilities, 
the  Acting  Minister  of  the  Interior  has  made  a  repre- 
sentation with  respect  to  this  matter  before  the 
Council  of  Ministers. 

<r' Taking  up  this  immediate  subject  for  dehberation 
and  v/ithoiit  touching  upon  the  question  of  the  general 
revision  of  laws  now  in  force  concerning  Jews,  the 
Council  of  Ministers  has  found  that  the  most  advisable 
.,  way  out  of  the  situation  created  would  be  to  grant 
the  Jews  the  right  of  residence  in  cities  and  towns 
beyond  the  Pale  of  Settlement.  This  privilege,  es- 
tablished because  of  the  exigencies  of  the  military 
situation,  must  not,  however,  affect  the  capital  cities,>^ 
and  the  localities  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Minis- 
tries of  the  Imperial  Court  and  the  Minister  of  War." 

The  appalling  facts  back  of  this  dry  official  statement 
were  already  known  to  all  Russia.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Jews  had  been  expelled  from  their  homes  overnight 
by  act  of  the  military  authorities.  At  a  previous  session 
of  the  Council  of  Ministers,  Prince  Shcherbatoff,  him- 
self a  Conservative,  had  presented  the  terrible  con- 
dition of  these  refugees.  He  pointed  out  that  they 
were  perforce  driven  into  forbidden  territory,  that  it 
was  difficult  to  direct  them  anywhere,  each  one  naturally 
seeking  some  place  where  he  had  friends  or  relatives 
in  the  hope  of  finding  some  means  of  livelihood,  and 
that  because  of  the  residence  restrictions  they  found 
themselves  outlaws  against  their  will,  and  poured  in 
petitions  and  telegrams  in  tremendous  numbers,  begging 


*  Petrograd  and  Moscow. — Ed. 


THE  "ABOLITION"  OF  THE  PALE  23 

for  official  permission  to  reside  legally  in  their  new  homes. 
These  people,  he  pointed  out,  cannot  be  turned  away 
from  places  beyond  the  Pale,  because  they  cannot  pos- 
sibly go  back  to  their  old  homes.* 

As  was  shown  by  Duma  Deputy  Skobelev,  "the 
question  of  the  Pale  was  brought  up  in  the  Council  of 
Ministers  only  when  the  wave  of  Jewish  refugees  had 
already  swept  away  this  medieval  dam!"t  Another 
deputy,  an  Octobrist,  Rostovtzev,  declared  in  the  Duma: 
*What  Pale  is  this  you  are  speaking  of?  There  is 
no  Pale;  Kaiser  Wilhelm  has  abolished  it!'* 

If  any  further  evidence  were  needed  to  demonstrate 
that  the  abolition  decree  was  not  a  voluntary  act  of 
emancipation  but  was  forced  upon  the  government  by 
conditions  beyond  its  control,  the  inspired  editorial  in 
the  semi-official  government  organ,  the  '^Novoe  Vremya,'' 
of  August  9  (22),  1915,  supplies  this  evidence.  It  declares 
flatly  that  the  reception  of  the  measure  by  the  general 
press  as  ''the  first  rays  of  a  new  dawn"  is  entirely  un- 
warranted; that  the  question  of  removing  all  Jewish 
disabilities  was  never  discussed:  it  is  not  particularly 
important  anyway;  it  was  not  even  worked  out  for 
presentation  to  the  Duma.|  Certain  conditions,  created 
by  a  state  of  a^airs  already  existing,  had  made  it  neces- 
sary to  modify  soma  of  the  regulations  with  respect  to 
the  Pale.    That  is  all.    No  permanent  statute  will  be 

enacted. 

^^ 

2.  ^The  decree  was  issued  in  the  hope  of  facilitating 
a  foreign  loan,  y 


*Petrograd  "Reteh,"  Aug.  8  (21),  1915. 

tPetrograd  "Retch,"  Aug.  14  (27),  1915, 

JThis  has  reference  to  that  section  of  the  "Constitution"  of  1905,  which 
empowers  the  government  to  issue  ministerial  decrees  while  the  Duma  is  not  in 
session,  but  requires  it  to  introduce  corresponding  legislation  in  the  Duma  within 
six  months  after  the  ministerial  decree  haa  been  published. 


24         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Count  A.  Bobrinski,  a  Conservative  member  of  the 
Imperial  Council,  declared,  in  a  statement  to  the  editor 
of  the  "Dehn":* 

"The  conservative  members  of  the  Imperial  Council  raised  no 
objection  whatsoever  against  the  recent  Government  measure 
granting  permission  to  the  Jews  to  reside  outside  of  the  Pale.  I 
believe  that  we  shall  have  to  become  accustomed  to  the  idea  of 
seeing  the  Jews  dwell  in  all  parts  of  Russia  after  this  war  is  over. 
There  can  be  no  return  to  the  old  conditions. 

"The  necessities  of  the  war  must  lead  us  also  to  sanction  future 
concessions  toward  the  Jews  whenever  the  need  thereof  will  be 
recognized  by  the  Government^  order  to  be  able  to  place  a 
Government  loan  in  America."  y 

The  attitude  of  "Kolokol,"  the  organ  of  the  Holy- 
Synod,  reflects  this  with  perfect  frankness: 

"Power  has  gradually  passed  from  the  mailed  knights,  from 
heroes  of  the  battlefield  to  the  counting  house,  because  in  gold 
there  is  more  power  than  in  fearless  argonauts.  If  Germany  excels 
us  in  armament  and  was  better  prepared  in  every  other  way  it  is 
because  her  nation  is  older  than  ours,  older  in  its  culture  by  several 
hundred  years.  Herein  hes  our  weakness.  But  the  Jews  are  the  oldest 
people  on  earth.  Their  cult  is  the  cult  of  gold  and  of  brains.  It 
does  not  matter  that  they  have  forgotten  their  glorious  epoch  of 
mihtary  heroism,  have  forgotten  how  they  defended  their  Jeru- 
salem. It  does  not  matter  that  they  are  no  longer  accustomed 
to  bear  arms  and  to  decide  with  the  sword  their  differences  and 
quarrels.  This  people  has  learned  to  draw  to  itself  the  gold  of  the 
world.  It  is  Uke  a  sponge.  ...  It  has  learned  caution  and 
foresight  and  is  organized  into  a  powerful  international  force. 
Under  the  conditions  of  the  present  war  the  Jews  are  a  power  not 
to  reckon  with  which  is  to  be  politically  blind.  Would  it  not  be 
advantageous  to  Russia  to  throw  into  its  scales  these  nuggets  of 
gold,  these  biUions  of  the  international  bankers?      .     .     ."f 

The  naivete  of  these  statements  is  ridiculed  by  the 
liberal  press,   led  by  the  Petrograd  "  Retch,"  with  the 


*  "Reform  Advocate,"  Nov.  13,  1915.     (Tr.  from  tha  French), 
t  Quoted  from  "Retch."  Aug.  9  (22),  1915. 


THE  "ABOLITION"  OF  THE  PALE  25 

comment  that  "It  is  difficult  for  the  anti-Semites  of  yes- 
terday to  pour  new  wine  into  old  flasks.  The  scare- 
crows of  *  Jewish  freemasonry/  the  'universal  Kehillah'  and 
other  myths  still  terrify  the  editors  of  'KolokoF;  but 
instead  of  screaming:  The  Jews  are  strong;  crush 
themr  the  cry  now  is  'The  Jews  are  strong;  yield  to 
them!'  It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  these  new  converts 
that  the  Jewish  question  is  merely  one  of  elementary 
civic  decency."* 

The  significance  of  this  will  be  appreciated  when  it 
is  recalled  that  the  hberal  press  reflects  the  ideals  of 
the  Russian  masses  just  as  "Kolokol"  reflects  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  the  Russian  government. 

3.  The  measure  was  granted  grudgingly,  with 
galling  limitations  which  emphasize  the  humiUating  po- 
sition of  the  Jews. 

The  Jews  are  even  under  the  provisions  of  the  new  de- 
cree still  debarred  from  all  villages,  from  the  two  capitals 
Petrograd  and  Moscow,  from  the  vicinities  where  royal 
residences  happen  to  be  located  and  from  the  districts 
of  the  Don  and  Turkestan  which  happen  to  be  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  ministry  of  war.  These  restric- 
tions were  denounced  as  senseless  by  all  the  liberal 
elements  of  the  Empire.  ''Russkoe  Slovo,"  August  13 
(26),  1915,  declares: 

"Hereafter  a  Jew  may  live  in  Kaluga,  but  is  excluded  from 
Tashkent;  in  Yekaterinodar  he  may  not  live;  in  Nizhni  he  may. 
It  is  very  hard  to  find  any  sense  in  such  distinctions,  even  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Black  Hundreds.  If  you  should  ask  Markov 
2d  [the  leader  of  the  Black  Hundreds. — Tr.]  into  what  cities  we 
ought  to  admit  Jews — whether  into  Nizhni,  or  into  Tashkent, 
he  would  answer  at  first,  of  course,  that  we  ought  not  to  admit 
them  into  either;  but  confronted  with  'dire  necessity'  he  would 


*"Reteh."  Aug.  9  (22).  1915. 


26         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

hardly    give    preference    to    Tashkent,     akeady    full    of    alien 
nationalities. 

"And  yet  to  whom,  except  Markov  2d  and  his  kind,  would  all 
these  exceptions  and  limitations  give  any  aid  or  comfort?  Sup- 
pose we  do  allow  the  Jews  perfect  freedom  of  travel  within  the 
country;  suppose  we  do  find  villages  where  so  much  as  a  whole 
Jew — and  not  a  fractional  Jew — exists  statistically  per  hundred 
of  peasant  population;  suppose  we  do  find  a  Jewish  tailor,  a  black- 
smith or  a  merchant  in  a  Russian  village — would  that  be  such 
a  calamity?" 

4.  In  practice  the  act  is  often  ignored  or  evaded 
by  local  officials. 

The  Governor  of  Smolensk  has  continued  to  expel 
Jews  entering  his  province,  entirely  regardless  of  the 
law.  The  government  of  Kiev  even  refused  to  permit 
the  pubh cation  of  the  ministerial  decree  until  the  middle 
of  September,  some  six  weeks  after  its  official  promulga- 
tion, and  has  consistently  ignored  it  since.  In  prac- 
tically all  the  other  governments  of  the  Empire  the 
administration  of  the  act  is  entirely  dependent  upon 
the  whims  of  the  local  governors.  Late  advices  bring 
reports  of  the  expulsions  of  Jews  from  the  Caucasus, 
Tomsk,  Vladivostok,  Siberia,  and  many  other  cities  and 
provinces  in  which,  under  the  terms  of  the  abolition 
decree,  Jews  are  permitted  to  reside.* 

In  many  places  the  local  authorities  have  even  taken 
advantage  of  the  new  decree  to  deprive  the  Jews  of 
rights  possessed  by  them  under  older  statutes.  In 
Saratov,  for  example,  a  small  number  of  Jewish  mer- 
chants, professional  men  and  artisans  have  been  permitted 
to  live  and  engage  in  gainful  occupations  since  1893, 
under  the  terms  of  a  special  Ukase  issued  in  that  year, 
although  the  city,  being  outside  the  Pale,  is  closed  to 
Jews    in   general.     The   regulations,    however,    required 


*  "Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"  Oct.  25  (Nov.  7),  1915,  Nov.  8  (21),  1915,  etc. 


^THE  "ABOLITION"  OF  THE  PALE  27 

that  the  Jews  obtain  special  passports  from  the  poUce 
department  certifying  to  their  right  of  residence  in 
Saratov,  and  special  permits  from  the  local  license  boards, 
based  upon  the  police  certificates,  authorizing  them  to 
engage  in  their  several  occupations.  But  now  that  the 
Pale  has  been  ' 'abolished' '  the  police  ofiicials  have  dis- 
continued the  issuing  of  special  certificates,  claiming 
that  since  all  Jews  have  been  granted  the  right  of  resi- 
dence throughout  the  Empire  the  need  for  issuing  such 
certificates  to  individual  Jews  no  longer  exists.  Yet  the 
license  boards  persist  in  their  demand  for  such  certifi- 
cates from  the  Jews  and  have,  to  date,  absolutely  refused 
to  grant  them  the  necessary  licenses  without  which  they 
cannot  continue  in  their  occupations.  In  other  words, 
the  Jews  of  Saratov  now  have  the  legal  right  to  live 
in  that  city,  but  are  denied  the  legal  right  to  secure  the 
wherewithal  to  live.* 

5.  The  promulgation  of  the  abolition  act,  designed 
to  mislead  the  public  opinion,  and  thereby  to  win  the 
sjrmpathy,  of  the  civilized  world,  has  not  misled  the 
people  of  Russia. 

This  is  clearly  indicated  by  the  typical  expressions 
of  editorial  opinion  which  follow;  and  at  this  point  it 
may  be  well  to  remind  the  American  reader  again  that 
in  Russia,  more  than  in  any  other  country,  the  press 
must  weigh  its  words  carefully,  since  editorial  missteps 
have  serious  consequences. 

The  ''Russkoe  Slovo,"  August  13  (26),  1915,  condemns 
the  measure  as  a  half-way  measure,  as  a  substitution  of 
one  Pale  for  another,  ''even  though  it  be  granted  that  the 
new  Pale  is  larger  than  the  old."  It  demands  the  full 
abolition  of  the  Pale — *Hhat  greatest  misfortime  of 
Russian  life." 


*  "Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"  Nov.  8  (21),  1915. 


28         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

''Unfortunately,"  it  continues,  "we  tend  to  repeat  our  mistakes 
only  too  often.  When  we  do  'submit'  to  the  demands  of  life  we 
do  so  either  too  late  or  with  such  indecision  and  so  grudgingly  that 
in  the  end,  instead  of  evoking  real  satisfaction,  we  not  infrequently 
evoke  a  feeling  of  misunderstanding  or  produce  an  effect  which 
is  the  very  opposite  of  the  one  intended.  Yet  an  act  can  be  valid 
and  precious  and  achieve  its  highest  aim  only  when  it  is  done  in 
good  time,  cheerfully,  frankly,  straightforwardly  and  with  decision — 
as  befits  a  government  that  is  strong  and  sure  of  itself." 

The  Petrograd  ''Retch,"  the  great  liberal  daily,  August 
20  (September  2),  1915,  points  out  that  the  measure  is 
merely  tentative  and  must  be  legalized  by  statutory 
enactment  within  six  months.  It  hopes  that  this  enact- 
ment will  not  preserve  the  absurd  limitations  of  the 
original  decree. 

"If  it  has  at  last  been  recognized  as  expedient  to  remove  that 
shameful  blot,  the  Pale,  we  ought  to  leave  not  even  a  small  speck 
of  it.  From  a  moral  point  of  view, — and  even  an  empire  must  have 
a  point  of  view — it  matters  httle  whether  a  man  is  held  by  a  long 
chain  or  a  short  one.    There  should  be  no  chains  at  all.     .     .     ." 

This  is  echoed  by  the  Petrograd  ''Courier": 

*Tf  there  is  only  one  corner  of  Russia  left  to  which  Jews  may 
not  be  admitted,  the  Pale  still  remains,  no  matter  what  arguments 
may  be  used,  and  no  matter  what  promises  of  future  'privileges' 
may  be  made.  A  principle  cannot  be  measured  quantitatively. 
The  step  taken  so  far  is  merely  a  beginning,  and  Hfe  demands  that 
it  should  be  completed.  Besides  the  'right  to  live'  there  are  other 
rights  derived  from  it: — the  right  to  attend  school,  to  do  business, 
to  own  property,  to  choose  one's  occupation  freely."* 

Even  the  extreme  reactionary  organ,  ''Kolokol," 
which  has  hitherto  been  most  insistent  in  its  demand 
that  "True  Russians"  be  protected  from  Jewish  competi- 
tion by  the  confinement  of  Jews  to  the  Pale,  now  declares: 

"Abolish  the  Pale  entirely.  Even  now  it  is,  in  fact,  nothing 
but  a  sieve.     All  of  real  ability  in  Jewry,  every  Jewish  faculty 


*  Quoted  from  "Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"  Aug.  23  (Sept.  5),  1915,  pp.  10-12. 


THE  "ABOLITION"  OF  THE  PALE  29 

sharpened  for  the  struggle  for  existence,  easily  escapes  the  Pale. 
But  this  constant  necessity  for  circumvention  of  the  law  only  cor- 
rupts the  Jews  and  exasperates  them."* 

The  persons  most  affected,  the  six  million  Jews  of 
Russia,  received  the  "Emancipation  Act"  with  deep 
mistrust.  They  were  chiefly  concerned  lest  the  news 
of  this  act  should  deceive  their  co-religionists  abroad.  At  a 
national  conference  of  Jewish  publicists  and  relief  workers 
at  Petrograd  these  resolutions  were  adopted: 

''We  are  unv/illing  that  our  brethren  in  other  lands  shall  gain 
a  false  impression  from  our  attitude  toward  the  abolition  measure. 
.  .  .  The  permission  to  reside  in  cities  outside  of  the  Pale 
in  no  way  remedies  the  evil,  nor  does  it  relieve  the  pressing  needs 
of  our  times,  nor  does  it  affect  in  any  way  the  legal  restrictions 
in  force  against  Jews.  ...  In  expressing  our  profound  indig- 
nation at  the  humiliation  and  persecution  to  which  the  Jews  have 
been  subjected  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  we  declare  that 
the  State  can  do  justice  to  the  Jews  and  prevent  further  perse- 
cutions only  by  the  total  and  imconditional  repeal  of  all  special 
restrictions.'* 

The  leading  Russian  Jewish  Weekly,  ''Evreyskaya 
Zhizn,"  of  August  23  (September  5),  1915,  declared 
editorially: 

"If  this  measure  had  been  passed  in  July  or  August  of  1914 
we  would  have  met  it  with  faith  and  joy.  Then  the  Jewish  people 
were  ready  to  appreciate  any  political  measure  of  relief  and  looked 
upon  everything  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  That  new  era 
came,  but,  alas!  of  what  a  different  nature!  Periods  of  accusations 
and  horrors,  of  Kovno  expulsions  and  Kuzhif  slanders  came  and 
the  people  grew  desperate.  This  half  measure  of  the  Ministers, 
in  spite  of  its  practical  importance,  cannot  vitalize  the  Jewish 
people,  and  the  main  reason  Ues  in  the  fact  that  this  measure  does 
not  carry  with  it  any  new  view  upon  the  real  subject  matter  of  the 
Jewish  question.    This  measure  is  only  a  slight  relief  in  the  con- 


*  Quoted  from  "Retch,"  Aug.  9  (22),  1915.         f  See  page  48. 


30  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

dition  of  citizens  who  have  no  rights  and  who  remain  without 
rights.  .  .  .  The  Jews  are  considered,  in  the  new  order,  as 
citizens  of  the  second  class.  We  remain  the  same  pariahs,  from 
whom  something  has  to  be  kept  back,  to  whom  the  villages  must 
be  closed  with  fear,  and  to  whom  the  chosen  centers  must  be  closed 
with  a  feehng  of  loathing.  .  .  .  The  element  of  distinction 
between  Jews  and  other  citizens  remains  and  is  even  more  empha- 
sized. The  principle  of  equality  of  rights  for  Jews  has  not  been 
realized  and  without  it  no  material  benefits  promised  by  the  new 
act  will  find  their  way  to  the  soul  of  the  people.  Only  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  right  of  Jews  to  all  rights  of  Russian  citizenship  will 
melt  the  ice  of  that  cold  disappointment  which  has  seized  all  Russian 
Jews." 

Finally,  the  eminent  Jewish  historian,  Simeon  Dubnov, 
in  an  impassioned  article  in  "Evreyskaya  Nedelya" 
(September,  1915),  denounced  the  hypocrisy  of  the 
government  and  demanded  the  immediate  abolition  of 
all  Jewish  restrictions: 

"It  is  fully  a  year  since  the  terrified  faces  of  the  'prisoners' 
appeared  through  the  bars  of  that  gigantic  prison  known  as  'the 
Jewish  Pale.'  Part  of  the  prison  was  akeady  enveloped  in  the 
flames  of  war,  and  the  entire  structure  was  threatened.  The 
prisoners,  in  deathly  terror,  clamored  that  the  doors  be  thrown 
open.  They  were  driven  from  one  part  of  the  prison  to  another 
part  that  seemed  in  less  danger,  but  the  prison  doors  remained  shut. 
The  warden's  answer  to  their  prayer  was  that  it  was  impossible 
to  'release  them,'  even  in  war  time,  because  later  it  would  be  diflScult 
to  'recapture'  them! 

"Ultimately  the  keepers  were  compelled  to  open  the  doors 
shghtly  and  to  let  out  a  part  of  the  dazed  and  half-asphyxiated 
inmates;  but  even  then  they  were  quarantined  within  three  govern- 
ments, which  were  immediately  congested  with  refugees;  and  only 
now,  when  the  largest  section  of  the  Pale,  with  a  Jewish  population 
of  two  million,  has  become  foreign  country — only  now  are  the  gates 
of  the  overcrowded  prison  thrown  wide  open  and  the  prisoners 
cautiously  permitted  to  leave.     .     .     . 

* 'Should  our  further  emancipation  proceed  at  the  same  pace, 
we  shall  attain  full  freedom  only  after  our  complete  annihilation. 
.     .     .     The  sop  is  thrown  to  us  under  conditions  internal  and 


OTHER  JEWISH  DISABILITIES  31 

external  which  sharply  emphasize  its  enforced  character.  This 
measure  is  not  one  of  restoration;  rather  is  it  like  a  rag  thrown 
to  the  victim  after  his  last  shirt  has  been  taken  from  him.  This 
belated,  partial,  privilege  must  remind  the  Jew  that  of  all  national- 
ities in  Russia — not  excepting  the  semi-savage  tribes — he  alone 
needed  such  a  favor. 

"At  this  time  of  profound  mourning,  upon  the  graves  of  thou- 
sands of  our  brothers  who  have  fallen  victims  not  only  to  the  sword 
of  the  enemy,  but  because  of  outrage  within  our  own  borders,  amidst 
the  ruins  of  our  cities,  our  weary  hearts  cannot  rejoice  over  the 
beggarly  dole  tossed  out  to  us.  In  silence  shall  our  people  accept 
the  miserly  gift  from  those  from  whom  it  is  accustomed  to  receive 
only  blows;  but,  as  ever,  it  will  demand  aloud  that  those  rights  of 
which  it  has  been  deprived  should  be  restored  to  it." 

It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  the  legal  status  of  the 
Jews  in  Russia  has  remained  substantially  unchanged 
by  the  war. 

The  restrictions  normally  imposed  upon  the  Jews  of 
Russia  (with  the  exception  of  certain  specially  designated 
— and  numerically  negligible — fractions)  subject  them 
to  the  following  principal  disabilities: 


1.    Other  Residence  Restrictions 

(a)  Within  the  Pale.  Although  originally  granted 
the  right  to  live  anywhere  within  the  Pale,  the  privilege 
was  gradually  restricted  until  the  Jews  were,  in  effect, 
confined  to  the  cities  and  larger  towns.  By  the  law  of 
May  3  (15),  1882,  the  Jews  were  forbidden  to  settle  in 
the  villages  of  the  Pale.  By  the  law  of  December  29, 
1887  (January  10,  1888),  they  were  forbidden  to  move 
from  one  town  to  another.  By  judicial  and  adminis- 
trative interpretation  "towns"  were  often  designated 
as  villages  and  the  Jews  expelled  from  them  overnight. 
The  net  result  has  been  the  consiestion  of  the  Jewish 


32         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

population  in  the  cities  and  larger  towns.  Although  they 
constitute  only  12  per  cent,  of  the  total  population  of  the 
Pale,  they  form  41  per  cent,  of  the  urban  population. 
As  this  congestion  tended  to  create  a  ferocity  in  com- 
petition which  reduced  incomes  and  standards  to  the 
lowest  limits,  many  Jews  of  necessity  attempted  to 
escape  into  the  interior  of  Russia.  But  their  illegal 
stay  was  possible  only  with  the  connivance  of  a  corrupt 
police.  Even  then  the  numerous  police  raids  at  mid- 
night or  early  dawn  (ohlavy — literally  ''hunts"),  accom- 
panied by  an  excess  of  brutality,  made  the  life  of  these 
illegal  residents  one  of  fear  and  torment. 

(b)  Outside^  the  Pale.  The  privileged  five  per 
cent,  that  was  granted  the  theoretical  right  of  free  travel 
and  residence  throughout  the  Empire,  was  also  con- 
tinually harassed  by  arbitrary  police  and  judical  meas- 
ures which  practically  nullified  their  privilege.  This 
class  comprises: 

Artisans,  permitted  free  residence  by  the  law  of  1865; 
but  constant  restrictions  and  new  interpretations  of  the 
term  have  reduced  the  number  of  Jews  enjoying  this 
status  to  a  bare  fraction  of  the  Jewish  population. 

Merchants  of  the  First  Guild,  allowed  to  leave  the 
Pale  after  five  years'  membership  in  their  guild,  and  on 
condition  of  the  payment  of  an  annual  tax  of  800  roubles 
($400)  for  ten  years,  after  removal  from  the  Pale.  Nu- 
merically insignificant  to  begin  with,  this  class  was 
further  reduced  by  police  blackmail  until  it  became 
almost  negligible. 

Jewish  graduates  of  Russian  institutions  of  higher 
education.  The  operation  of  the  ^'percentage"  rule,  how- 
ever, reduces  these  to  a  minimum.     (See  pp.  33-34.) 

Prostitutes.  Jewish  women  who  have  become  pros- 
titutes are  permitted  to  live  outside  the  Pale. 


OTHER  JEWISH  DISABILITIES  33 

2.    Occupational  Restrictions 

The  public  service  of  the  Empire,  or  of  any  of  its 
political  subdivisions,  is  practically  closed  to  Jews. 
Jews  may  not  be  teachers  (except  in  Jewish  schools), 
or,  as  a  rule,  farmers.  These  artificial  restrictions  operate 
to  drive  the  Jews  into  the  occupations  permitted  to 
them,  chiefly  trade  and  commerce,  thus  overcrowding 
the  ranks  of  tradesmen  and  artisans. 


3.    Property  Restrictions 

Jews  may  not  buy  or  sell,  rent,  lease  or  even  manage 
land  or  real  estate  outside  the  Pale  or  outside  of  the 
city  limits  within  the  Pale.  The  artisans  privileged 
to  practise  their  handicraft  outside  the  Pale  may  under 
no  circumstances  own  their  homes.  The  ownership, 
direct  or  indirect,  of  property  in  mines  or  oil  fields  is 
also  forbidden  to  Jews. 

4.    Fiscal  Burdens 

The  Jews  pay,  in  addition  to  the  normal  taxes,  a  candle 
tax,  designed  for  the  support  of  Jewish  schools,  and  a 
meat  tax,  originally  destined  for  Jewish  religious  purposes; 
but  in  practice  these  funds  are  diverted  to  general,  non- 
Jewish,  purposes,  and  even  used,  in  part,  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  police  measures  against  the  Jews. 

5.    Educational  Restrictions 

Jews  are  not  admitted  to  the  secondary  or  higher 
educational  institutions  and  universities,  except  in  pro- 
portions varying  from  3  to  15  per  cent,  of  the  entire 
number  of  non-Jewish   pupils.    (For  high  schools:     10 


34         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

per  cent,  within  the  Pale  and  5  per  cent,  outside  the 
Pale,  except  in  the  two  capitals  St.  Petersburg  and 
Moscow,  where  it  is  only  3  per  cent.;  and  for  univer- 
sities all  over  the  Empire,  about  3  per  cent.) 

A  ministerial  decree  issued  in  August,  1915,  permits 
the  children  of  all  Jews  actively  connected  with  the  war 
to  enter  any  educational  institution  in  the  country 
regardless  of  the  percentage  norm  ;  but  in  practice  this 
decree,  like  the  decree  abolishing  the  Pale,  is  entirely 
subject  to  interpretation  and  modification  by  the  local 
authorities,  who  have,  so  far,  virtually  ignored  it. 

The  result  of  the  percentage  norm  applied  to  the 
admission  of  Jews  to  secondary  schools  and  universities 
is  that  in  the  towns  to  which  the  Jews  are  restricted  by 
the  domiciliary  regulations  and  where  they  constitute 
in  many  cases  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  population, 
the  great  majority  of  the  Jewish  youth  are  denied  the 
means  of  a  higher  education.  In  Warsaw,  the  Jews 
constitute  36.30  per  cent,  of  the  population;    in  Lodz, 

47.59  per  cent.;   in  Lomza,  39.42  per  cent.;   in  Kovno, 

54.60  per  cent.;  in  Vilna,  40  per  cent.;  In  Grodno, 
52.45  per  cent.;  in  Bialostock,  65.62  per  cent.;  in 
Brest  Litovsk,  78.81  per  cent.;  in  Pinsk,  80. 10  per  cent.; 
in  Berditcheff,  87.52  per  cent.,  etc.,  yet  in  all  these 
towns  only  the  stipulated  percentage  of  Jewish  students 
may  be  admitted. 

In  addition  to  this  restriction,  many  secondary  schools 
(School  of  Military  Medical  Hygiene,  School  of  Railroad 
Engineering,  School  of  Electricity,  etc.),  are  entirely  closed 
to  Jews.  Even  commercial  schools,  maintained  by  Mer- 
chants' Guilds,  admit  Jews  only  in  proportion  to  the 
Jewish  membership  of  the  Guilds. 

The  Government  also  restricts  the  establishment  of 
higher  schools  under  Jewish  auspices.    In  1884,  it  closed 


OTHER  JEWISH  DISABILITIES  35 

the  Technical  Institute  of  Zhitomir  (founded  in  1862), 
on  the  ground  that,  in  the  southwestern  Pale  provinces, 
the  Jews  contributed  a  majority  of  the  artisans,  and  a 
special  Jewish  technical  school  would  increase  this  dis- 
proportion. In  1885  it  closed  the  Teachers'  Institute 
(a  noted  center  of  Jewish  learning)  because  ''there  was 
no  further  need  for  it." 

As  a  consequence  of  these  limitations  and  restrictions 
there  has  been  a  scramble  among  Jews  to  gain  admission 
to  these  institutions.  Parents  have  employed  every 
expedient  to  have  their  children  enrolled.  Another 
consequence  is  that  many  Jewish  young  men  emigrated 
to  Switzerland,  Germany  and  France,  to  obtain  a  higher 
education,  and  thereafter  to  return  to  Russia  to  enter 
professional  life.  A  recent  calculation  shows  that  about 
3,000  Jewish  students  from  Russia  annually  exile  them- 
selves in  order  to  attend  foreign  universities. 

6.     Military  Service 

The  Jews  constitute  only  4,05  per  cent,  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  Empire,  bu't  the  proportion  of  Jews 
in  the  annual  army  contingent  was  estimated,  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Japanese  war,  at  5 . 7  per  cent.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  a  great  many  exemptions  which 
the  law  provides  for  non-Jews  are  made  inapplicable 
to  Jews.  In  the  army  the  Jews  can  achieve  no  rank 
higher  than  that  of  corporal.  A  penalty  of  300  rubles 
(S150)  is  placed  upon  each  Jewish  defection,  and  the 
whole  family,  including  parents  and  relatives  by  mar- 
riage of  the  person  accused,  is  held  responsible  therefor. 

The  results  of  these  repressions  and  persecutions 
are  knowTi.  Politically  outlawed,  socially  and  econom- 
ically degraded,  the  Jewish  population  imprisoned  in  the 


36         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Pale  has  festered  in  misery.  The  merchants  have  been 
obliged  to  resort  to  fearful  competition.  Workingmen, 
overcrowding  their  industries,  have  been  compelled  to 
work  for  starvation  wages.  Most  of  the  Jewish  homes 
in  Russia  are  miserable  hovels,  with  little  air  or  light. 
In  the  great  cities,  the  proportion  of  paupers  approxi- 
mates a  fifth  of  the  Jewish  population.  In  Odessa  in 
1900,  of  a  population  of  150,000  Jews  no  less  than  48,500 
were  supported  by  charity;  63  pfer  cent,  of  the  dead  had 
pauper  burials,  and  a  further  20  per  cent,  were  buried 
at  the  lowest  possible  rate.  In  the  Governments  of 
Ekaterinoslav,  Bessarabia,  Pietrikov,  Chernigov  and 
Siedlets,  the  number  of  charity  cases  at  the  Passover 
festival  increased  from  41.9  per  cent,  to  46.8  per  cent. 
in  four  years. 

THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  WAR 

It  was  against  this  background  of  ever-spreading 
persecution  and  misery  that  the  great  war  broke  upon 
the  Jews.  They  accepted  it  as  loyal  Russian  citizens, 
and  not  without  hope  that  it  might  lead  to  some  im- 
provement in  their  own  conditions. 

The  Kehillas  (communities)  of  Petrograd,  Odessa  and 
other  cities  officially  sent  large  sums  in  gold  for  the 
reservists,  established  hospitals  for  the  use  of  the  wounded 
without  distinction  of  race  or  creed,  held  great  patriotic 
demonstrations  in  the  synagogues,  at  which  the  Rabbis 
urged  the  Jewish  youth  to  render  their  full  share  of  military 
service,  and  in  other  ways,  presented,  as  the  Mayor 
of  Odessa  said,  "an  example  of  readiness  to  sacrifice 
everything  for  the  army." 

The  spirit  of  the  Jews  of  Russia  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  is  well  expressed  in  the  appeal  which  the  Jewish 


JEWISH  LOYALTY  AND  VALOR  37 

community  of  Vilna,  the  oldest  in  Russia,  at  the  very 
heart  of  the  Pale,  issued  in  connection  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  military  hospital: 

''Our  beloved  Fatherland — the  great  Russian  Empire — has  been 
provoked  to  bloody,  terrible  conflict.  It  is  a  struggle  for  the 
integrity  and  greatness  of  Russia.  All  true  sons  of  Russia  have 
risen  as  one  man  to  shield  their  country,  with  their  own  breasts, 
against  the  onslaught  of  the  enemy.  Our  brothers  of  the  Jewish 
faith,  all  over  the  Russian  Empire,  have  also  responded  to  the 
call  of  duty  .  .  .  and  many  have  voluntarily  joined  the  army 
which  has  gone  forth  to  the  field  of  battle.  But  circumstances 
now  demand  that  those  of  us  who  have  not  been  fortunate  enough 
to  be  called  forward  to  fight  for  our  country  with  weapons  in  our 
hands  should  also  make  whatever  sacrifices  we  can.  We  owe  a 
sacred  obligation  to  those  who  have  left  their  families  behind, 
those  who  are  defending  our  country,  and  us,  with  their  blood  and 
their  lives.  It  is  our  duty  to  assume  all  responsibility  for  the 
families  of  the  reservists.  It  is  our  duty  to  take  care  of  those  who 
will  fall  wounded  or  ill  in  the  war.  No  doubt  this  sacred  duty 
will  be  assumed  by  the  entire  Jewish  population  of  the  Empire, 
by  individuals  no  less  than  by  entire  communities.  The  history 
of  all  past  wars,  especially  those  of  the  nineteenth  century,  be- 
ginning with  the  war  of  1812,  shows  that  the  Jews  have  honestly 
and  sacredly  fulfilled  their  duty  as  citizens  and  were  ever  ready 
to  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  their  country  their  wealth,  their  blood 
and  even  their  lives  ...  In  like  manner,  at  this  great  crisis 
in  the  life  of  our  country,  we,  the  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
community  of  "Vilna,  the  oldest  in  Russia  and  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  present  conflict,  take  the  Uberty  of  appealing  to  our  co- 
religionists to  begin  at  once  the  work  of  organizing,  relief  for  the 
wounded  and  for  the  families  of  the  reservist^  We  must  care 
equally  for  all  the  soldiers  of  our  glorious  ar^y,  without  dis- 
tinction of  race  or  creed^Jor  all  are  brothers,  sons  in  common  of 
our  great  Fatherland.    .J^    ." 

The  Jewish  press  also  gave  resonant  voice  to  this 
spirit  of  loyalty  and  devotion.  The  *'Novy  Voskhod,"* 
one  of  the  leading  Jewish  organs  in  Russia,  issued  this  call : 


*  September  24  (Oct.  7),  1914. 


38         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

-  "We  were  bom  and  brought  up  in  Russia.  Our 
ancestors  are  buried  here.  We  Russian  Jews  are  bound 
to  Russia  by  ties  which  cannot  be  broken,  and  our 
brothers  who  have  been  driven  beyond  the  ocean  by 
cruel  fate  cherish  their  memories  of  Russia  all  through 
life.  Custodians  of  the  commandments  of  our  fore- 
fathers, nucleus  of  the  entire  Jewish  nation,  we,  the 
Jews  of  Russia,  are  nevertheless  united  inseparably 
with  the  country  in  which  we  have  dwelt  for  hundreds  of 
years,  and  from  which  neither  persecution  nor  oppression 
can  tear  us  away.  At  this  historical  moment,  when  our 
country  is  threatened  by  foreign  invasion,  when  brute 
force  has  taken  up  arms  against  the  great  ideals  of 
humanity,  the  Jews  of  Russia  will  bravely  go  forth  to 
battle  and  will  fulfil  their  sacred  duty    .     .    .** 

The  Jewish  contingent  in  the  Russian  army  numbered 
from  350,000  (an  estimate  made  by  the  Mayor  of  Petro- 
grad  before  the  Conference  of  Russian  Mayors  in  August, 
1914),  to  400,000  (the  estimate  made  by  the  Jewish 
Colonization  Association,  Petrograd).  The  thousands  of 
Jewish  students  who  have  matriculated  at  foreign  uni- 
versities because  the  "percentage  rule"  had  closed  the 
Russian  universities  to  them,  returned  to  enroll  under 
the  colors,  even  though  they  knew  that  there  was  no 
hope  of  preferment  for  them. 

On  the  field  of  battle  the  Jewish  soldiers  distinguished 
themselves  for  valor.  Over  one  thousand  received  the 
Medal  or  Cross  of  St.  George.  From  the  many  letters 
of  appreciation  and  affection  written  by  Russian  officers 
to  the  relatives  of  Jewish  soldiers  under  their  command 
who  had  been  disabled  or  killed,  it  was  evident  that  the 
Jews  had  won  the  affection  and  respect  of  the  fighting 
men  in  the  field.  But  it  was  their  eternal  misfortune 
that  the  war,  by  the  logic  of  military  geography,  had 


POLES  AND  JEWS  39 

to  be  fought  out,  on  the  Eastern  side,  in  Poland;  for 
between  the  Poles  and  the  Jews  there  had  long  been  a 
state  of  open  conflict — and  the  developments  of  the 
campaign  in  Poland  foredoomed  the  Jews  to  disaster 
appalling  and  almost  irretrievable. 


POLES  AND   JEWS 

The  conflict  between  the  Poles  and  Jews  dates  back 
to  the  earliest  period  of  Jewish  life  in  Poland. 

In  its  early  stages  it  was  purely  religious.  The  Church 
Synod  of  1542  declared  that:  * 'Whereas  the  Church 
tolerates  the  Jews  for  the  sole  purpose  of  reminding  us 
of  the  torments  of  the  Savior,  their  number  must  not 
increase  under  any  circumstances."* 

The  Synod  of  1733  reiterated  this  gospel  of  hate  by 
declaring  that  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  Jews 
is: 

**That  they  might  remind  us  of  the  tortures  of  the 
Savior,  and  by  their  abject  and  miserable  condition 
might  serve  as  an  example  of  the  first  chastisement 
of  God  inflicted  upon  the  infidels."  f 

In  its  later  stages  the  struggle  was  chiefly  political 
and  economic.  When  Russia  acquired  Poland,  through 
the  several  partitions  in  the  eighteenth  century,  it  frankly 
adopted  the  old  Roman  principle  of  divide  et  impera. 
It  persistently  fomented  hostilities  between  the  Polish 
and  Jewish  population  by  crowding  them  together  in 
a  restricted  area  where  neither  could  make  a  decent 
livelihood,   by  pitting  them  against  each  other  in  an 


*  Friedlaender,  "The  Jews  of  Russia  and  Poland,"  p.  38. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  57. 


40         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

economic  struggle  conducted  on  the  lowest  possible 
plane  and  on  the  most  hopeless  terms,  by  playing  off 
religious  and  racial  prejudices  and  by  every  other  de- 
vice possible  to  a  government  with  unlimited  power 
and  an  unprincipled  poHcy.  And  the  Poles,  politically 
undeveloped,  instead  of  combining  with  the  other  victims 
of  Russia  against  the  common  oppressor,  turned  upon 
their  fellows  with  a  ferocity  truly  unparalleled  in 
European  history. 

Several  years  before  the  war  broke  out  this  struggle 
came  to  a  climax  over  the  election  of  a  deputy  to  the 
Duma.  The  Jews  of  Poland  felt  that  they  were  entitled  to 
at  least  one  member  to  represent  them  in  the  Duma, 
particularly  in  the  city  of  Warsaw,  where  they  con- 
stitute nearly  half  of  the  population.  It  happened, 
however,  that  in  the  city  of  Lodz  they  unexpectedly 
elected  one  Jewish  deputy,  Bomash.  The  Jews,  there- 
fore, seeking  to  conciliate  the  Poles  and  not  to  wound 
their  national  pride  by  insisting  upon  the  election 
of  a  Jewish  deputy  from  Warsaw,  the  ancient  Polish 
capital,  offered  to  compromise,  stipulating  only  that  the 
Polish  candidate  be  not  an  avowed  anti-Semite.  The 
Poles,  however,  insisted  upon  putting  up  a  notorious 
anti-Semite.  The  Jews,  equally  unable  to  support  such 
a  candidate  in  self-respect  or  to  elect  one  of  their  own, 
united  on  a  Polish  Socialist  candidate,  electing  him 
to  the  Duma.  This  led  to  retaliation  in  the  form  of  a 
boycott  directed  not  only  at  Jewish  tradesmen,  but  even 
at  Jewish  physicians,  artisans  and  other  workingmen, 
which  soon  spread  destitution  throughout  Poland,  affect- 
ing, as  it  did,  Jews  and  Poles  alike.  So  ugly  and  bitter  a 
form  did  the  boycott  assume  that  at  times  even  the  Russian 
government  was  compelled  to  take  the  part  of  the  Jews 
as  against  the  Poles. 


THE  WAR  IN  POLAND  41 

Anti-Semitism  in  Poland 

A  significant  observation  upon  the  economic  character 
of  the  Polish-Jewish  struggle  was  made  by  the  well 
known  Russian  journahst,  Madam  A.  E.  Kuskova. 

"I  found  red-hot  anti-Semitism  everywhere  in  Poland.  We 
have  anti-Semitism  in  Russia,  but  of  a  different  kind.  .  .  .  Anti- 
Semitic  papers  like  'Dva  Grosha'  accused  all  Jews  of  all  sorts  of 
crimes,  without  protest  from  the  Progressive  press,  and  succeeded 
in  arousing  the  Polish  people.  In  Pyasechna,  a  ruined  place  near 
Warsaw,  where  ten-day  battles  took  place,  I  spoke  to  many  peasants 
who  accused  the  Jews  of  many  of  their  troubles,  but  could  never 
explain  what  they  really  blamed  them  for.  We  Russians  held  a 
meeting  to  try  to  find  the  causes  of  this  feeUng.  .  .  .  We 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  .  .  .  the  Polish- Jewish  ques- 
tion is  really  a  Russian-Polish- Jewish  question,  and  touches 
us  as  much  as  the  Poles.  They  have  not  room  enough  to  live, 
and  more  and  more  Jews  are  coming  there.  Even  democratic 
organizations  are  compelled  to  take  cognizance  of  this.  One  peasant 
organization  expresses  through  its  organ  the  idea  that  it  is  true  that 
the  Jews  are  a  burden  to  Poland,  but  it  warns  the  peasants  against 
anti-Semitism  nevertheless."* 

THE  WAR  IN  POLAND 

When  the  fighting  armies  overran  Poland,  the  Poles 
saw  their  chance  and  seized  it.  The  dream  of  a  free 
Poland  had  never  been  absent  from  their  minds.  When 
the  world  catastrophe  came  the  Poles  saw  in  it  not  only 
an  opportunity  to  regain  their  land,  that  had  been  dis- 
membered more  than  a  century  before,  but  also  an 
opportunity  to  avenge  themselves  on  the  hated  Jews. 
Just  as  the  Russians  had  always  played  the  Poles  against 
the  Jews,  so  now  the  Poles  hoped  to  play  Russian,  Ger- 
man, Austrian  and  Jew  against  each  other.  It  was 
indeed  to  the  interest  of  both  Russia  and  Austria  to 


*  "Rasviet,"  December  5  (18),  1914,  p.  12. 


42         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

court  the  sympathy  of  Poland.  And  the  Poles  seized 
the  occasion  to  denounce  the  Jews,  now  to  the  Russians, 
now  to  the  Germans,  as  spies  and  traitors. 

The  position  of  the  Jews  under  this  cross-fire  became 
unbearable.  Here  are  several  cases,  selected  at  random, 
showing  its  effect  upon  the  Jewish  population: 

One  of  the  first  towns  in  Russian  Poland  captured 
by  the  Austrians  was  Zamosti,  near  the  Hungarian 
frontier,  taken  by  a  detachment  of  Sokol  troops  in 
September,  1914.  They  were  soon  driven  out  by  the 
Russians;  and  at  once  the  Poles  of  the  town  denounced 
the  Jews  to  the  Russian  commander,  accusing  the  Jews 
of  having  given  aid  to  the  enemy  during  the  Austrian 
occupation  of  the  town.  Twelve  Jews  were  arrested. 
They  denied  their  guilt  but  were  sentenced  to  death. 
Five  of  them  had  already  been  hanged,  when,  in  the 
midst  of  the,  execution,  a  Russian  priest,  carrying  an 
image  of  the  Virgin,  appeared  and  with  his  hand  on 
the  image  took  oath  that  the  Jews  were  innocent  and 
that  the  accusation  was  merely  a  product  of  Polish 
vindictiveness.  He  proved  that  the  Poles  of  the  town 
themselves  had  supported  the  Austrians  and  that  even  a 
telephone  connection  with  Lemberg  could  be  found. 
The  seven  remaining  Jews  were  then  set  free.  But  five 
had  already  been  hanged.* 

At  Lemberg,  in  September,  1914,  the  Poles  accused 
the  Jews  of  firing  on  Russian  troops;  as  a  consequence 
a  great  many  Jews  were  arrested,  and  nearly  seventy 
were  attacked  and  wounded;  but  an  investigation 
proved  them  all  innocent,  and  Drs.  Rabner  and  Diamond, 
the  Jews  who  had  been  taken  as  hostages,  were  released,  f 


*  George  Brandes  in  "Politiken,"  Nov.,  1914. 

t  "Russkaya  Viedomosti,"  Oct.  2  (15),  1914,  p.  20.     "Navy  Voekhod,"  Oct.  2 
(15),  lol4,  p.  21. 


THE  WAR  IN  POLAND  43 

At  Kieltse  and  Radom  the  Poles  plundered  many 
Jewish  shops  and  when  the  Russians  returned  after  the 
German  retreat  the  Poles  denounced  the  Jews  as  German 
sympathizers.  Here  also  those  Jews  who  were  arrested 
were  found  to  be  innocent  and  released  after  investi- 
gation.* 

At  Mariampol,  near  the  East  Prussia  frontier,  because 
of  a  similar  accusation,  the  entire  Jewish  male  popula- 
tion, with  their  Rabbi,  Krovchinski,  at  their  head,  were 
compelled  to  work  the  roads  for  three  days — September 
22-24  (October  5-7),  1914  (the  first  two  of  these  days 
falling  on  the  Sukkoth  holiday.)! 

In  this  town,  also,  one  Gershenovitz  was  sentenced 
to  penal  servitude  for  six  years  because  he  acted  as 
Mayor  during  the  German  occupation,  although  the 
inquiry  held  by  the  Russians  showed  that  he  had  been 
forced  by  the  Germans  to  accept  the  office.* 

At  Jusefow  the  Jews  were  accused  of  poisoning  the 
wells.  Seventy-eight  were  killed  outright,  many  Jewish 
women  were  -idolated  and  ail  the  houses  and  shops 
plundered,  t 

In  Drsukenihi  a  mill  owner,  Chekhofski,  was  accused 
of  having  given  a  signal  for  the  German  bombardment 
of  the  town  by  blowing  his  mill  whistle.  When  the 
Russians  reoccupied  the  town  he  was  brought  to  trial 
before  the  Military  Tribunal  and  the  charge  was  proven 
to  be  groundless.  § 

These  are  only  a  few  instances,  taken  at  random, 
of  Polish  slanders.  In  not  a  single  known  case  were 
the  charges  justified;  on  the  contrary,  their  gross  ab- 
surdity was  demonstrated  on  numerous  occasions  before 

*  "No^/y  Voskhod,"  Sept.  22  (Oct.  8),  1914,  p.  20. 

t  "Rasviet,"  Dec,  5  (IS),  1914,  p.  18. 

§  "Politiken,"  Nov.  1,  1914. 

J  "Rasviet,"  March  29  (April  11),  1914,  p.  20. 


44         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

military  tribunals  that  could  not  possibly  be  charged 
with  prejudice  in  favor  of  the  Jewish  side  of  the  issue. 
A  perfect  illustration  of  this  is  furnished  by  the  story 
of  the  villages  of  Groitsi  and  Nove-Miasto,  near  Warsaw. 

The  Case  of  Nove-Miasto 

The  Germans,  in  their  first  advance  on  Warsaw,  in 
September-October,  1914,  occupied  these  villages 'for  a 
few  days.  When  the  Russian  'troops  recaptured  the 
towns  the  Poles  at  once  denounced  the  Jews  as  having 
welcomed  the  German  troops  and  having  aided  them 
in  every  possible  way — whereas  the  Poles,  according 
to  their  own  account,  had  accepted  the  German  rule 
passively,  doing  only  whatever  they  were  forced  to  do 
by  the  military  authorities.  They  pointed  out  seven 
persons,  five  Jews  and  two  Germans,  who  had  demon- 
strated such  devotion  to  the  invaders  as  to  merit  trial 
for  treason  and  the  death  penalty.  One  Jew,  Goldberg, 
it  was  charged,  had  revealed  to  the  Germans  the  hiding 
place  of  ten  Russian  soldiers,  resulting  in  their  capture; 
another  Jew  had  shown  them  where  they  might  requisition 
horses  and  food,  and  had  acted  as  guide. 

The  case  was  brought  to  trial  before  the  military 
guard,  and  there,  under  strict  examination,  it  assumed 
an  entirely  different  aspect.  A  priest,  Zemberzhusky, 
testified  that  Jews  and  Poles  had  acted  precisely  alike 
toward  the  Germans;  that  their  reception  of  the  Ger- 
mans expressed  no  joy,  that  all  alike  had  complained 
of  the  invaders'  requisition  and  pillage,  and  that  it  was 
only  due  to  the  tactful  conduct  of  the  citizens  that  the 
town  of  Nove-Miasto  was  not  entirely  demolished.  It 
was  shown  that  not  a  single  Russian  soldier  had  been 
captured  by  the  Germans  and  that  the  Goldberg  charge 


THE  CASE  OF  NOVE-MIASTO  45 

was  entirely  false.  All  the  other  charges  were  similarly 
disproved.  It  developed  that  they  were  based  on  two 
facts.  In  the  preliminary  investigation  the  trial  officers, 
being  ignorant  of  PoUsh,  were  compelled  to  employ 
interpreters.  One  of  these  interpreted  the  statement 
of  a  Polish  witness  to  the  effect  that  he  had  seen  a  certain 
Zilberberg  walk  the  streets  arm  in  arm  with  a  German 
officer.  The  fact  brought  out  in  the  new  trial  was  that 
the  witness  had  actually  seen  the  German  officer  seize 
Zilberberg  by  the  neck!  In  the  second  place,  the  story 
had  been  started  in  sheer  malice  by  two  notorious 
gangsters,  whose  evidence  was  unworthy  of  any  con- 
sideration.    All  of  the  accused  were  therefore  acquitted.* 

The  significance  of  this  episode  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
Colonel  in  command  in  this  particular  case  happened 
to  be  a  kindly  man,  who,  being  unwilling  to  see  injustice 
done,  went  to  the  trouble  to  have  the  case  carefully 
investigated.  Hundreds  of  other  cases  based  on 
equally  groundless  accusations  came  to  court  without 
the  possibility  of  such  a  fair  investigation. 

Another  case  of  this  sort  is  reported  from  Su valid. 
It  was  charged  by  the  Poles  that  the  Jev/s  of  Suvalki 
had  met  the  Germans  with  bread  and  salt  (the  national 
Russian  custom  in  welcoming  guests).  The  facts  were 
that  practically  the  entire  population  of  Suvalki  had 
fled  at  the  approach  of  the  Germans.  The  Germans, 
however,  had,  with  their  usual  thoroughness,  made 
out  in  advance  a  list  of  the  leading  citizens  of  Suvalki 
who  were  to  be  appointed  to  the  deputation  that  was 
*'to  welcome'^  the  Germans.    Only  one  Jew  was  on  this  list. 

Not  all  the  Poles  were  bitterly  hostile  to  the  Jews, 
as  may  be  seen  from  the  following  story,  reprinted  from 


*  "Rasviet,"  April  12  (25),  1915.  pp.  18-19;    "  Novy  Voskhod,"  April  10  (23) 
1915.  pp.  29-30. 


46         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

the  Polish  paper,  "Novo  Gazeta/^  in  "Rasviet,"  February 
8  (21),  1915,  p.  36: 

"An  army  officer,  a  Pole,  reports  this:  Where  our  detachment 
was  stationed,  I  found  a  group  of  soldiers  surrounding  a  muzhik, 
who  was  telling  them  that  the  Jews  had  cut  the  telegraph  wires. 
The  soldiers  were  furious  and  ready  to  take  revenge  on  the  miserable 
Jews.  I  approached  the  group  and  said  to  the  muzhik:  'I  am  glad 
to  see  that  your  patriotic  impulses  urge  you  to  expose  these  Jew 
traitors.  You  must  take  me  to  them  at  once.  You  say  you  know 
the  guilty  ones.  Show  us  how  we  can  capture  them  and  dispose  of 
them.' 

"The  muzhik  became  confused  at  once.  He  stammered:  *I 
didn't — say  anything  about  them.  I  didn't  see  them  myself.  I 
didn't  see  anything  myself.     People  say  so.     Everybody  says  so.' 

"I  assumed  a  severe  attitude  and  said  to  him:  'You  know 
these  people  perfectly  well,  but  you  don't  want  to  expose  them. 
You  are  trying  to  shelter  these  traitors.  You  must  take  me  to 
them  at  once!'  After  more  evasions,  the  muzhik  broke  down 
completely.  Thereupon  the  soldiers  turned  upon  him,  and  wanted 
to  beat  him,  but  I  took  him  under  my  protection.  He  confessed 
completely  to  me  and  I  sent  him  off  and  told  him  to  beg  his 
priest  to  preach  on  the  following  Sunday  on  the  text  'Love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself.' 

"Another  instance  was  this.  In  a  Warsaw  street  car  filled  with 
passengers,  I  saw  a  Polish  woman  physician  looking  out  at  a  Jewish 
automobile  ambulance.  'Look  here,'  she  cried,  'These  Jews  also 
have  motor  ambulances.  I  think  they  must  be  stolen.'  I 
took  it  upon  myself  to  ask  her  for  an  explanation  of  this.  She 
was  decent  enough  to  admit  that  she  knew  nothing  at  all  about  it 
and  that  she  had  said  these  words  without  thinking. 

"In  these  two  cases  it  happened  that  I  came  out  as  a  Pole 
defending  the  honor  of  Poland,  because  I  beheve  that  Poland  does 
not  require  such  outrageous  falsifications  and  slanders  for  its  regen- 
eration. If  they  were  not  so  painful  to  relate,  I  could  give  you  a 
whole  series  of  such  incidents." 

Even  the  Polish  clergy,  usually  anti-Semitic,  felt  com- 
pelled to  protest  against  the  excesses  of  their  followers. 
Thus  in  January,  1915,  the  priests  of  Plotsk,  headed  by 
Archbishop  Kovalsky,  interceded  on  behalf  of  the  Jews 


ANTI-SEMITISM  IN  POLAND  47 

with  the  Russian  authorities  who  had  made  numerous 
arrests  upon  the  denunciations  of  Pohsh  agitators. 

So  outrageous  was  the  attitude  of  the  Poles  that  at 
a  Conference  of  Progressive  Deputies  of  the  Duma  held 
at  Petrograd  in  January,  1915,  resolutions  were  passed 
to  extend  no  help  whatever  to  the  Polish  Deputies  in  any 
of  their  nationahst  projects  in  the  Duma  because  of 
their  attitude  toward  the  Jews. 

The  Polish  weekly,  '^Glos  Polsky,"  published  in 
Petrograd,  contains  an  interview  with  Professor  Milyukov 
on  the  Polish  question: 

"Our  point  of  view  is  that  along  the  River  Vistula  live  not  only 
Poles,  but  that  there  also  lives  another  people,  the  Jewish  people, 
which  has  a  right  to  be  recognized.     .     .     . 

''When  the  Polish  question  will  be  taken  up  in  the  legislative 
chambers,  we  shall  demand  that  the  fundamental  act  should  guar- 
antee the  rights  of  the  Jewish  minority  as  well.     .     .     ."* 

At  several  conferences  of  Russian,  Polish  and  Jewish 
communal  workers  which  took  place  in  Petrograd  and 
Moscow  in  January,  1915,  the  majority  of  the  Russians 
expressed  their  solidarity  with  the  Jews  in  this  matter,  f 

Even  the  most  reactionary  Russians  foresaw  danger 
to  Russia  in  the  Polish  campaign  of  vilification  against 
the  Jews.  Thus  the  "True  Russian"  (anti-Semitic) 
leader,  Orloff,  after  a  visit  to  Poland,  declared:  "I  have 
seen  nothing  bad  on  the  part  of  the  Jews,  although  the 
Poles  made  up  all  sorts  of  accusations  against  them. 
But  in  these  Polish  reports  you  feel  prejudice,  vindictive- 
ness,  hatred,  nothing  else.  .  .  .  The  Jews  are  loyal 
and  brave,  and  it  is  most  inadvisable  to  pursue  a  policy 
which  might  convert  six  million  subjects  into  enemies."  | 


*  "Rasviet,"  Jan.  25  (Feb.  7),  1915,  p.  27. 

t  "Rasviet."  Feb.  1  (14),  1915.  p.  39. 

t  "Rasviet."  Apr.  23  (May  9),  1915,  p.  24. 


48  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

The  Kuzhi  Case 

But  the  Russian  military  authorities,  seeking  a  scape- 
goat for  their  own  failures,  eagerly  seized  upon  the 
Pohsh  stories,  and  gave  them  official  standing  and 
wide  circulation.  The  notorious  Kuzhi  incident  illus- 
trates the  methods  used.  The  story,  as  first  published 
in  the  military  paper  "Nash  Viestnik,"  the  ofiicial  organ 
of  the  northwestern  army,  on  May  5  (18),  1915,  in  the 
official  daily  newspaper  issued  by  the  Russian  govern- 
ment, the  "Pravitelstvenny  Viestnik,"  May  6  (19),  1915, 
and  elsewhere,  ran  as  follows: 

"On  the  night  of  April  28th,  in  Kuzhi,  northwest  of  Shavli, 
the  Germans  attacked  a  detachment  of  one  of  our  infantry  regi- 
ments resting  there.  This  disclosed  the  shockingly  treacherous 
conduct  of  a  part  of  the  population — especially  the  Jewish  part — 
towards  our  troops.  The  Jews  had  concealed  German  soldiers 
in  their  cellars  before  our  troops  arrived,  and  at  a  signal  they  set 
fire  to  Kuzhi  on  all  sides.  The  Germans,  leaping  out  of  the  cellars, 
rushed  to  the  house  which  our  regimental  commander  was  occupy- 
ing. At  the  same  time  two  of  the  battalions,  supported  by  cavalry, 
attacked  our  outposts  and  captured  the  village.  The  house  in 
which  the  commander  had  his  headquarters  soon  fell  in.  Colonel 
Vavilov  ordered  that  the  regimental  colors  be  burned,  and,  re- 
fusing to  surrender  to  the  Germans,  was  killed.  Our  reinforce- 
ments then  arrived,  drove  the  Germans  out  of  Kuzhi  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet,  and  saved  the  remnants  of  the  burning  standard. 
All  the  local  inhabitants  who  had  taken  part  in  this  terrible  affair 
were  brought  before  a  court-martial  and  the  ringleaders  will  be 
sent  to  Siberia.  This  sad  incident  again  demonstrates  the  need 
of  keeping  constant  guard,  particularly  over  all  those  Jewish  towns 
which  have  at  any  time  been  held  by  the  enemy." 

This  story,  in  all  its  circumstantial  details,  was  spread 
broadcast  throughout  the  Empire,  in  all  the  official  and 
semi-official  organs  of  the  government,  on  the  bulletin 
boards,  wherever  the  Russian  populace  congregates. 
By  military  order  it  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  every 


SPY  STORIES  49 

man  in  the  army,  down  to  the  last  private.  Country 
editors  were  ordered  to  reprint  the  story  under  threat 
of  prosecution.  Not  a  hamlet  in  all  Russia  but  shuddered 
at  the  monstrous  treachery  of  the  Jews.  In  Tashkent  the 
clergy  offered  a  prayer  in  the  Cathedral,  petitioning  God 
to  deliver  the  Russian  army  from  the  machinations  of 
Jewish  traitors.  Even  the  Liberals,  usually  sympathetic 
toward  the  Jews,  were  silent,  as  no  defense  was  possible 
in  so  black  a  case. 

Then  it  occurred  to  someone  to  make  an  investi- 
gation. Three  deputies  of  the  Duma  went  to  the  spot 
in  person  and  discovered  that  in  the  entire  village  of 
Kuzhi  there  were  only  six  Jewish  families — all  but  one 
living  in  miserable  huts  without  cellar  space;  that  the 
one  cellar  in  a  Jewish  house  was  only  nine  by  seven  and 
too  low  for  a  man  to  stand  upright  in;  that  it  could  not 
possibly  hide  enough  German  soldiers  to  attack,  much 
less  annihilate,  a  Russian  detachment;  that  the  few 
Jews  of  the  town  had  left  it,  with  the  permission  of  the 
military  authorities,  on  April  27th,  the  day  before  the 
town  had  been  attacked  by  the  Germans,  and  were 
known  to  have  spent  the  night  of  April  27-28  at  another 
village,  Minstok;  and,  finally,  that  no  Jews  had  been 
tried,  convicted  or  executed  at  Kuzhi;  in  brief,  that  the 
story  was,  from  begmning  to  end,  an  absolute  fabrication. 

This  Kuzhi  story  was  branded  as  a  lie  by  the  Jewish 
Deputy  Friedman  in  the  Duma  on  July  19  (August  1), 
1915.  He  was  supported  by  the  non- Jewish  Deputy 
Kerensky,  who  denounced  the  fabrication  in  these  words: 

"I  declare  now  from  this  rostrum  that  I  personally  went  to 
the  town  of  Kuzhi  to  verify  the  accusation  that  the  Jewish  popula- 
tion of  Kuzhi  had  committed  a  treacherous  assault  on  the  Russian 
army,  and  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  reiterate  that  this  is  but  an  igno- 
minious slander.  There  was  no  such  case,  and  under  local  con- 
ditions there  could  be  none." 


60  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

But  the  refutation  of  the  He  was  not  spread  through- 
out Russia.  It  has  been  consistently  suppressed  by  the 
military  censor,  and  to  this  day  the  great  majority  of  the 
Russian  people,  in  the  absence  of  disproof,  fully  believe 
the  story. 

The  Shavli  Case 

Another  spy  story  widely  circulated  in  the  anti- 
Semitic  press  was  that  the  Jews  of  Shavli  had  been 
expelled  from  Kurland  because  they  were  detected 
in  the  act  of  leading  the  German  troops  on  to  Shavh. 
This  also  was  printed  in  all  the  military  and  semi-oflScial 
newspapers  of  Russia  and  from  there  reprinted  in  the 
general  press.  The  newspaper  ^'Dehn"  pointed  out 
the  absurdity  of  this  and  similar  charges:* 

"Accepting  the  story  as  it  stands,  without  demanding  the 
names  of  the  Jews  found  guilty,  or  any  other  details,  let  us  simply 
examine  the  map.  Shavli  is  not  in  Kurland  at  all.  It  is  in  the 
province  of  Kovno,  and  is  50  versts  from  the  nearest  point  in  Kur- 
land, and  more  than  50  versts  from  the  nearest  point  inhabitated 
by  Jews.  The  Germans,  we  know,  m^oved  to  Shavli,  not  thi'ough 
Kurland,  but  from  the  opposite  direction.  The  charge,  if  true, 
would  therefore  mean  that  the  Jews  of  Kurland  went  100  versts 
out  of  their  way  in  an  entirely  strange  territory  in  order  to  commit 
treason  by  communicating  with  Germans.  This  is  obvious  non- 
sense. Nor  is  it  less  obvious  that  this  fiction  has  been  manu- 
factured out  of  whole  cloth.  And  this  is  how  it  was  manufactured: 
Reports  reached  the  newspapers  that  the  Jews  of  Kurland  were 
being  expelled.  The  anti-Semitic  papers  at  once  argued  that  if 
the  Jews  were  being  expelled  they  must  have  committed  some 
treason,  and  since  the  Hne  of  the  German  advance  was  known  to 
be  in  the  general  direction  of  Shavli,  and  since  these  people  were 
too  lazy  to  consult  the  map,  they  promptly  decided  that  the  expulsion 
must  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Jews  of  Kurland  had  guided 
the  Germans  to  Shavli." 

And  so  this  preposterous  story  was  started  on  its  way. 

♦Quoted  from  "Retch,"  May  10  (23),  1915. 


SPY  STORIES  AL 

Other  Spy  Stories 

No  story  was  too  absurd  to  be  given  credibility  and 
systematic  circulation.  It  was  reported,  and  seriously 
believed,  that  at  a  place  unnamed  and  a  time  unknown 
some  Jew  had  enclosed  a  million  and  half  roubles  in  a 
coflSn  and  shipped  the  coflan  to  Germany.  The  chief 
Rabbi  and  the  Jewish  community  of  Warsaw  telegraphed 
to  the  "Novoe  Vremya"  and  several  other  leading  papers, 
protesting  against  this  monstrous  slander  against  the 
Jews  at  a  time  when  their  sons  were  shedding  their  blood 
freely  on  the  battlefields.  The  *'Novoe  Vremya"  de- 
clined to  publish  the  telegram.* 

The  Jewish  community  of  Petrograd  appealed  to  the 
Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  then  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Russian  armies,  in  these  words: 

"The  entire  Jewish  people  would  cast  out, 
with  scorn  and  indignation,  those  base  criminals 
who,  forgetting  duty  and  conscience,  would,  in 
this  year  of  universal  sacrifice,  break  their  sacred 
vows  of  loyalty  to  the  fatherland.  Such  treachery 
is  alien  to  our  faith  and  was  never  known  to 
exist  among  Jews  to  any  greater  extent  than  among 
other  peoples.  And  never  yet,  in  the  course  of 
the  centuries,  no  matter  to  what  persecutions  the 
Jews,  under  the  influence  of  prejudice  created 
by  their  devotion  to  their  ancient  faith  and  customs, 
may  have  been  subjected,  has  any  government 
denounced  ALL  of  its  subjects  as  traitors  to  their 
country.  This  is  the  first  time  in  all  history  that 
such  an  attitude  has  been  assumed  by  any  govern- 
ment toward  the  Jews.  At  the  very  time  that  our 
sons  are  fighting  in  the  ranks  of  the  Russian 

*  "Novy  Voskhod,"  Aug.  28  (Sept.  10),  1914,  p.  22. 


52         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

army  for  the  honor  and  glory  of  Russia,  we,  their 
fathers,  are  held  responsible  for  the  acts  of  a  few 
criminals  and  are  being  persecuted  for  their 
vile  deeds,  aimed  at  the  betrayal  of  our  own 
sons.  Never  has  any  man  or  any  people  been 
subjected  to  torment  greater  than  this,  to  humil- 
iation less  bearable  or  more  offensive  to  honor 
or  self  respect.  .  .  .  Your  Imperial  Highness  ! 
In  this  sad  hour  of  trial  we  long  to  implant  in  our 
people  faith  in  a  brighter  future,  we  long  to  pre- 
serve that  tie  of  loyalty  towards  our  common 
country  which  is  so  essential  for  the  welfare  of 
all  the  peoples  inhabiting  Russia,,  and  which  was 
demonstrated  so  powerfully  when  the  insolent 
enemy  first  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  Russia. 
We  do  not  wish  to  admit  discord,  despair  and 
sorrow  where  should  reign  only  unity,  harmony, 
hope.  And  we  dare  to  appeal  to  your  Imperial 
Highness  in  the  hope  that  measures  insulting  to 
us  will  cease  to  be  appUed,  that  the  stamp  of  out- 
cast be  removed  from  our  faces  and  that  we  may 
be  permitted,  as  loyal  sons  of  our  country,  freed 
from  all  suspicion,  to  use  our  whole  strength  in 
the  struggle  with  the  common  enemy." 

No  reply  was  received  to  this  appeal;  on  the  contrary, 
the  poHcy  of  fastening  upon  the  Jews  all  the  blame 
for  Russian  defeats  was  carried  out  consistently  by  the 
military  machine.  The  ''Russki  Invalid,"  the  official 
journal  of  the  War  Department,  in  the  spring  of  1915, 
definitely  accused  the  Jews  of  disloyalty  to  the  State 
and  of  sympathy  for  Germany,  and  openly  attributed 
Russian  disaster  to  this  cause.* 


*  "Novy  Voskhod,"  April  24  (May  7),  1915. 


SPY  STORIES  63 

Military  orders  like  the  following  were  common: 

ORDER   No.  89. 

Issued  to  the  Soldiers  op  the  Fortified  Region,  Fortress 
NovoGEORGiEVSK,  Nov.  27,  1914. 

"The  German  newspapers  print  articles  de- 
claring that  among  the  Russian  Jews  the  Germans 
find  reliable  allies  who,  besides  supplying  them 
with  food,  are  often  the  best  and  unpaid  spies, 
ready  to  enter  any  service  injurious  to  the  cause 
of  Russia,  and  that  in  German  victory  the  Jews 
see  their  salvation  from  Imperial  oppression  and 
Polish  persecution.  Similar  information  continues 
to  come  in  from  the  army. 

In  order  to  protect  the  army  from  the  harm- 
ful activities  of  the  Jewish  population,  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief has  ordered  that  the  forces  of 
occupation  take  hostages  from  among  the  Jewish 
population,  warning  the  inhabitants  that  in  case 
of  treacherous  activities  on  the  part  of  any  one 
of  the  local  inhabitants  not  only  during  the  period  of 
our  occupation  of  a  given  inhabited  point,  but  also 
after  our  leaving  it,  the  hostages  will  be  executed, 
which  order  is  to  be  carried  out  in  case  of  necessity. 

Upon  occupation  of  inhabited  points,  careful 
searches  are  to  be  m.ade  to  find  out  whether  there 
are  any  arrangements  for  wireless  telegraphy,  sig- 
naling, pigeon  stations,  underground  telegraphs, 
and  so  forth,  and  the  full  penalty  of  the  law  is  to 
be  meted  out  to  anyone  connected  with  this. 

Reference:  Telegram  by  General  Oranovsky  of 
this  year  under  No.  3432.  Signed,  Chief  of  the 
Fortified  Region. 

General  of  the  Cavalry,  Bobyr." 


64         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

This  order  was  issued  from  the  press  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  December  2,  1914,  and  immediately- 
proved  profitable  to  the  dregs  of  the  Russian  soldiery, 
as  was  demonstrated  at  a  court  martial  held  in  Lomza, 
where  it  was  proven  that  three  members  of  a  signal 
corps  had  ''planted"  a  telephone  in  the  motion  picture 
theater  of  a  Jew  named  Eisenbiegel,  and  had  then  ar- 
rested him  and  demanded  5,000  roubles  blackmail. 
In  the  course  of  the  trial  it  developed  that  one  of  the  men 
was  responsible  for  the  hanging  of  no  less  than  seventeen 
innocent  Jews  as  spies  solely  because  they  were  unable 
or  unwilling  to  pay  the  blackmail  demanded  by  him.* 

Even  the  loyalty  of  Jewish  soldiers  was  officially 
questioned.  Order  No.  1193  of  the  General  Staff,  dated 
April  27-May  10,  1915,  commands  all  the  troops  "To 
watch  the  Jewish  soldiers — especially  their  readiness  to 
surrender  as  prisoners — and  in  general,  their  entire 
conduct." 

But  the  publication  and  circulation  of  orders  like 
these  reacted  disastrously  upon  the  Russian  arms.  By 
branding  the  entire  Jewish  population  as  traitorous 
the  military  authorities  encouraged  the  Poles  to  fabricate 
new  slanders,  the  spread  of  which  only  served  to  heighten 
the  distrust  of  the  populations  and  to  make  the  fighting 
area  of  Poland  a  quagmire  for  the  Russian  armies.  The 
troops  did  not  know  whom  to  trust  or  distrust.  Instead 
of  fighting  on  friendly  ground,  welcomed  and  supported 
by  the  moral  and  economic  resources  of  the  civihan 
population,  the  Russians  fought  on  ground  undermined 
by  hatred,  dissension  and  distrust. 

When  they  began  to  realize  this  state  of  affairs  some 
of  the  Russian  commanders  made  desperate  efforts  to 
check  the  spy  mania. 

*  "Maaha  SIovo,"  June  24.  1915. 


SPY  STORIES  56 

General  P.  Kurlov  issued  the  following  order  in  the 
Baltic  provinces  on  February  25,  1915: 

ORDER  No.  27 

"Of  late,  more  and  more  anonymous  denun- 
ciations and  reports  concerning  crimes  and  actions 
closely  connected  with  the  peculiar  conditions  of 
war  times  are  coming  in  in  the  provinces  given  over 
to  my  supervision.  Such  reports  not  only  lack 
confirmation  in  most  cases,  but  investigations 
prove  that  they  are  caused  in  the  majority  of 
cases  not  by  a  patriotic  desire  to  help  the  military 
authorities,  but  by  personal  reasons  of  revenge, 
not  only  not  admissible  in  war  time,  but  also  par- 
ticularly criminal.  By  distracting  the  attention 
of  officials  from  their  necessary  duties,  these  re- 
ports promote  disorder  and  excitement  among  the 
local  population. 

"I  have  asked  the  various  Governors  to  order 
the  police  officials  under  their  supervision  not  to 
institute  any  investigations  on  the  basis  of  anony- 
mous denunciations  except  in  extraordinary  cases 
(Article  300  of  the  Criminal  Code),  but  to  for- 
ward these  denunciations  to  me  and  wait  for  orders. 

"In  the  case  of  signed  denunciations  and  re- 
ports, the  police  ofiicials  must  first  of  all  question 
the  denunciator,  warning  him  of  the  consequence 
of  a  false  denunciation,  and  if  any  signs  of  crime 
should  be  established  in  the  courses  of  the  exam- 
ination, he  should  be  dealt  with  according  to 
Articles  250  to  261  of  the  Criminal  Code,  or  the 
Governors  should  impose  penalties  in  their  ad- 
ministrative capacity.     I  order  the  police  officials 


56  THE  JEWS  IN   THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

to  strictly  follow  Article  254  of  the  Code  when 
making  an  investigation.  Witnesses  found  to 
bear  false  reports  shall  be  subjected  to  criminal 
prosecution  according  to  Article  940  of  the  Code. 

^'In  view  of  the  particularly  criminal  character 
of  false  denunciations  in  war  time,  I  shall  apply 
the  most  rigorous  measures  to  those  found  guilty 
of  this  offense. 

*'I  have  asked  the  Governors  to  make  this  order 
pubhc  to  all."* 

SUPPRESSION  OF  YIDDISH  PRESS  AND 
SPEECH 

It  appears  also  that  the  similarity  of  the  Yiddish  and 
German  languages  further  laid  the  Jews  open  to  dis- 
trust. The  use  of  Yiddish,  in  conversation,  in  corre- 
spondence, over  the  telephone,  in  the  theatre,  etc.,  was 
prohibited  by  legal,  military  and  civil  authorities  under 
penalty  of  heavy  fine  and  imprisonment.  In  Lodz,  Vilna, 
Riga,  Warsaw,  and  other  Jewish  centers,  the  performance 
of  plays  in  Yiddish  was  prohibited  and  theatres  closed. 

Letters  from  foreign  countries  to  Russia,  in  any 
language  except  Yiddish  were  generally  passed  by  the 
censor  after  scrutiny,  but  letters  in  Yiddish  were  as  a  rule 
not  delivered  at  all. 

In  July,  1915,  the  commander  of  the  Russian  forces 
issued  the  following  absolute  order: 

"On  the  basis  of  the  power  entrusted  to  me  according  to  Para- 
graph 6,  Article  415,  Section  6,  I  prohibit  postal  and  telegraph 
communications  within  the  district  occupied  by  the  army  entrusted 
to  me,  in  the  Jewish,  German,  and  Hungarian  languages."  f 


♦"Retch,"  May  8  (21),  1915. 

t  "Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"  July  19  (Aug.  2),  1915,  p.  42. 


MILITARY  CENSORSHIP  57 

By  this  order  the  Russian  government  not  only- 
branded  the  entire  Jewish  people  as  spies  and  traitors, 
but  also  prevented  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Jewish 
soldiers  at  the  front  from  communicating  with  relatives 
and  friends,  because  many  of  the  soldiers  had  been  pre- 
vented by  educational  restrictions  from  learning  to  read 
and  write  Russian.  To  the  Jewish  soldier  unable  to 
read  or  write  was  thus  denied  even  that  scant  comfort 
which  his  Russian  comrades  might  derive  from  the  stereo- 
typed communications  checked  on  the  regulation  postal 
card  and  mailed  by  field-post. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  military  censors  as- 
sumed command  of  the  entire  press  of  Russia.  That  they 
used  their  power  with  the  utmost  unfairness  against  the 
Jewish  press  was  charged  without  contradiction  in  the 
Duma  by  Professor  Miliukov,  Deputies  Bomash,  Sucha- 
nov  and  others,  who  pointed  out  that  if  the  aim  of  the 
censor  was  to  suppress  every  truth  and  encourage 
every  lie  against  the  Jews,  they  could  not  possibly  have 
pursued  a  more  consistent  policy.  Deputy  Bomash 
furnished  the  following  concrete  instances  of  perversion 
of  facts  by  the  censorship. 

1.    It  systematically  expunged    or    mutilated 

the   names   of   Jews  to   whom   the   cross   of   St. 

George  had  been  av/arded.* 


*Here  is  a  list  taken  at  random  from  an  issue  of  "Ras- 
viet,"  April  5  (18),  1915,  p.  34: 

For  saving  a  wounded  Russian  officer,  presumably  under 
fire,  private  B.  M.  O.,  of  the  village  of  Strumin,  of  Mohilef 
Government,  was  rewarded  with  the  cross  of  St.  George, 
fourth  class. 

Private  S.  Y.  R.  awarded  cross  of  St.  George,  fourth 
class. 

Private  A.  Kh.  L.,  inhabitant  of  the  village  of  Saxagan, 
of  the  Govenmaent  of  Ekaterinoslav,  was  awarded  third  and 


m  TliE  JEWS   IN   THE  EASTERN    WAR  ZONE 

2.  When  the  Mayor  of  Petrograd  congrat- 
ulated the  Jewish  community  upon  the  heroic 
conduct  of  a  lad  of  13,  named  Kaufman,  the  cen- 
sor suppressed  the  fact  that  Kaufman  was  a  Jew, 
and  that  the  community  referred  to  was  the 
Jewish  community. 

3.  Stories  in  the  Russian  press  of  the  valor 
of  Jews  in  the  French  armies  are  either  sup- 
pressed or  the  Jewish  names  cut  out. 

4.  A  news  item  referring  to  the  fact  that 
General  Semenov,  whom  Jewish  soldiers  had 
saved  from  capture  by  the  Germans,  was  treating 
Jews  kindly  was  suppressed  by  the  censor. 

5.  Letters  of  regimental  commanders  to  the 
parents  of  Jewish  hussars  congratulating  them 
on  the  valor  of  their  sons,  or  notifying  them  of 
medals  of  honor  bestowed  upon  them,  were  sup- 
pressed by  the  censor. 

6.  The  military  censorship  also  suppressed 
news  of  an  absolutelj^  non-military  nature,  whenever 
it  might  in  any  manner  have  been  construed  as 
friendly  to  Jews.  Thus,  a  news  item  referring  to 
the  non-sectarian  activities  of  the  National  Relief 
Committee,  headed  by  the  Princess  Tatyana, 
daughter  of  the  Czar,  was  suppressed.     A  news 


fourth  grade  crosses  of  St.  George,  and  promoted  to  be  sub- 
officer. 

For  delivering  despatches  from  the  Staff  to  his  battalion 
under  the  enemy's  strong  fire,  private  B.  S.  G.  was  awarded 
a  medal  of  St.  George  and  made  a  corporal. 

Severely  wounded  and  now  in  a  hospital  at  Moscow, 
Abr.  B.  was  awarded  a  silver  medal  which  was  handed  to  him 
by  OrlofT,  Adjutant  to  his  Imperial  Majesty. 

A  long  list  of  similar  items  is  pubUshed  in  every  issue  of 
fihis  paper. 


MILITARY  CENSORSHIP  B9 

item  regarding  the  disapproval  of  the  Council 
of  Ministers  of  the  policy  of  expelling  Jews  en 
masse  and  of  wholesale  charges  of  treachery- 
was  also  suppressed. 

7.  Even  the  official  declaration  of  Count  Bob- 
rinski,  Military-Governor  of  Galicia,  referring 
to  the  correctness  of  the  conduct  of  the  Jews  of 
Galicia,  was  suppressed. 

8.  But— outrageously  false  items  published  in 
the  notoriously  anti-Semitic  papers  were  generally 
passed   by  the   censor   without   hesitation.     The 
*'Novoe  Vremya,"   the  ''Russkoe  Znamya/'   and 
other  anti-Semitic  organs,  systematically  published 
reports  of  wholesale  Jewish  desertions,  treachery, 
spying,  etc.,  without  at  any  time  producing  an 
iota  of  evidence.     Thus,  ''Russkoe  Znamya,"  de- 
clared that  the  loyalty  of  not  a  single  Jewish 
soldier  could  be  depended  upon.     The   "Novoe 
Vremya"   declared  that  the  Jews  were  without 
exception  embittered  enemies  of  the  Russian  army, 
and   that   during   the   Japenese   war    18,000   out 
of    27,000    soldiers    voluntarily    surrendered    as 
prisoners  to  the  Japanese.    Stories  without  name, 
date  or  place  to  the  effect  that  small  Polish  boys 
warned  the  Russian  soldiers  to  take  nothing  from 
JevN^s  because  everything  they  would  furnish  was 
poisoned  were  passed  by  the  censor,  and  made 
much   of   by   the    press.      The   notorious    Kuzhi 
canard  was  not  only  passed  by  the  censor  and 
printed  in  the  official  and  semi-official  press  of 
Russia,  but  the  censors  even  hinted  to  that  section 
of  the  press  which  hesitated  to  publish  a  tale  so 
manifestly  absurd  that  future  relations  with  the 
censorship  might  be  imperilled  if  the  story  were 


60         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

not  given  proper  publicity.  Editors  received  a 
continuous  stream  of  circulars  forbidding  the 
touching  of  questions  which  had  absolutely  no 
relation  to  the  war. 

9.  When  the  great  writers  and  publicists  of 
Russia  decided  that  it  would  be  desirable,  for  the 
honor  of  Russia,  to  speak  a  good  word  for  the  Jews 
and  thereby  indirectly  deprecate  before  the  world 
the  merciless  governmental  policy,  the  pamphlet 
containing  their  symposium  was  suppressed  by  the 
military  censor.  Even  the  preliminary  letter  of 
inquiry  sent  out  by  these  eminent  Russians, 
soliciting  information  as  to  the  participation  of 
Jews  in  the  war,  was  suppressed.  The  Jewish 
weekly,  the  ^^Novy  Voskhod,"  was  fined  2,000 
roubles  and  ultimately  suppressed  because  of  the 
publication  of  this  letter. 

In  spite  of  these  suspensions,  however,  the  six  million 
Jews  of  Russia  still  continued,  in  a  measure,  to  inform 
themselves  as  to  the  conduct  of  their  sons  in  the  field, 
and  as  to  matters  of  Jewish  interest  in  general,  through 
the  half  dozen,  or  more,  Jewish  newspapers,  which  man- 
aged to  struggle  on  in  spite  of  the  repeated  fines  and  sus- 
pensions imposed  by  the  censor.  But  on  July  5,  1915, 
the  entire  Jewish  press  was  suppressed.  Lately  several 
papers  have  been  revived  in  new  form,  but  today  the  Jews 
of  Russia  are  practically  in  the  dark.  They  have  no 
effective  means  of  communicating  with  one  another  or 
with  the  Russian  public.  They  can  neither  prevent 
the  instigation  of  calumnies  nor  refute  them  when 
spread  abroad.  They  live  in  a  constant  state  of  terror 
lest  some  new  Kuzhi  slander  set  the  country  aflame 
against  thepa. 


WHOLESALE  EXPULSIONS  61 

WHOLESALE  EXPULSIONS 

This  public  official  distrust  of  the  Jewish  population 
of  Russia  increased  with  the  Russian  reverses,  and  the 
assumption  by  the  authorities  that  the  loyalty  of  all 
the  Jews  was  open  to  suspicion  gave  added  impetus  to 
the  spy  mania,  set  the  Jews  apart  as  a  dangerous  people 
and  dehvered  them  helpless  into  the  hands  of  the  Cossack 
soldiery  and  the  hostile  Poles.  The  atrocities  com- 
mitted upon  the  Jews  in  Poland  and  Galicia  have  already 
been  referred  to.  But  a  more  disastrous,  though  less 
spectacular,  consequence  of  the  governmental  attitude 
towards  the  Jews  was  the  systematic  expulsion  of  the 
entire  Jewish  population  from  the  war  zone,  an  act 
which  assumed  the  character  of  a  merciless  war  by  Russia 
upon  its  own  population. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  war  there  were  in- 
dividual cases  of  Jews,  who,  being  suspected  of  bad  faith, 
were  ordered  to  leave  a  given  locality.  There  were  also 
sporadic  expulsions,  or  rather  a  forced  exodus,  of  the 
entire  civilian  population  of  localities  which  the  authori- 
ties desired  to  clear  for  military  operations.  ^3ut  it  was 
in  March,  1915,  that  the  authorities  began  systematically 
to  expel  Jews  from  all  the  Polish  provinces,  even  those 
not  occupied  by  German  troops,  and  from  the  govern- 
ments of  Kovno  and  Kurland,  thus  affecting  about  30 
per  cent,  of  the  entire  Jewish  population  of  the  EmpireT^ 
Even  the  Jewish  deputy  from  the  Kovno  district,  Fried^ 
man,  was  expelled,  in  spite  of  his  constitutional  privileges 
as  a  member  of  the  Duma. 

The  first  sufferers  were  the  Jewish  inhabitants  of 
the  smaller  towns,  because  these  were  readily  segregated. 
In  a  very  brief  space  of  time  the  region  where  the  Jews 
constitute  over  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the 


62  THE  JEWS   IN   THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

small  towns  was  absolutely  denuded  of  Jewish  inhab- 
itants.* It  was  only  the  rapid  invasion  of  this  terri- 
toiy  by  the  Germans  which  prevented  the  complete 
expulsion  of  every  one  of  the  two  million  or  more  Jews 
who  inhabited  this  area.  And  those  who  have  remained 
in  this  territory  for  the  present  have  been  promised, 
by  decree  of  the  supreme  military  authorities  of  Russia, 
immediate  expulsion  as  soon  as  the  Russian  troops  regain 
a  foothold  here.f 

The  enforcement  of  the  expulsion  orders  was  carried 
out  ruthlessly.  The  time  generally  allowed  was  twenty- 
four  hours,  rarely  forty-eight  hours.  The  Jewish  inhabi- 
tants of  the  governments  of  Kurland  and  Kovno  were 
given  from  five  to  tvventy-four  hours'  notice.  J 

The  Jews  of  the  city  of  Kovno  v/ere  notified  on  the 
evening  of  May  3  (16)  to  leave  not  later  than  midnight 
of  May  5  (18),  1915. 

Cruelty  of  Officials 

In  a  speech  delivered  in  the  Duma  the  non- Jewish 
deputy  Dzubinsky  declared: 

"As  a  representative  of  our  5th  Siberian  division  I  was  myself 
on  the  scene  and  can  testify  with  what  incredible  cruelty  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Jews  from  the  Province  of  Radom  took  place.  The 
whole  population  was  driven  out  v/ithin  a  few  hours  during  the 
night.  At  11  o'clock  the  people  were  informed  that  they  had  to 
leave,  with  a  threat  that  any  one  found  at  daybreak  would  be  hanged. 
And  so  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  began  the  exodus  of  the  Jews 
to  the  nearest  tov/n,  Ilzha,  thirty  versts  away.  Old  men,  invalids 
and  paralytics  had  to  be  carried  on  people's  arms  because  there 
were  no  vehicles. 

"The  police  and  the  gendarmes  treat  the  Jewish  refugees 
precisely  like  criminals.    At  one  station,  for  instance,  the  Jewish 

*  "Ziemia  Lubelska,"  April  23  (May  6),  1915. 

t  "Retch,"  May  10  (23),  1915. 

t  "Evreiskaya  Nedelya,"  June  14  (27),  1915. 


EXPULSIONS— CRUELTY  OF  OFFICIALS  63 

Commission  of  Homel  was  not  even  allowed  to  approach  the  trains 
to  render  aid  to  the  refugees  or  to  give  them  food  and  water.  In 
one  case  a  train  which  was  conveying  the  victims  was  completely 
sealed  and  when  finally  opened  most  of  the  inmates  were  found 
half  dead,  sixteen  down  v/ith  scarlet  fever  and  one  witli  typhus.  ,  .  . 

**In  some  places  the  Governors  simply  made  sport  of  the  inno- 
cent victims;  among  those  who  particularly  distinguished  them- 
selves were  the  governors  of  Poltava,  Minsk,  and  Ekaterinoslav 
.  .  .  who  illegally  took  away  the  passports  of  the  victims  and 
substituted  provisional  certificates  instructing  them  to  appear 
at  given  places  in  one  of  five  provinces  at  a  given  date.  When 
they  presented  themselves  at  these  designated  places  they  were 
shuttled  back  and  forth  from  point  to  point  at  the  whim  or  caprice 
of  local  officials. 

'*In  Poltava  the  Jewish  Relief  Committee  was  offcially  repri- 
manded by  the  governor  for  assuming  the  name  ^Committee  for 
the  Aid  of  Jewish  Sufferers  from  the  War,'  and  ordered  to  rename 
itself  'Committee  to  Aid  the  Expelled'  on  the  ground,  as  stated 
explicidy  in  the  order,  that  the  Jews  had  been  expelled  because 
they  were  politically  unreliable — and,  therefore,  presumably, 
deserved  no  help."* 

No  distinction  of  age,  sex  or  physical  condition  was 
made.  As  most  of  the  able-bodied  young  men  were  at 
the  front,  those  affected  by  the  expulsions  were  the 
persons  least  able  to  bear  up  under  the  suffering  and 
privation  entailed — old  men  and  women,  children,  the 
sick  from  the  hospitals,  the  insane  from  the  asylums, 
even  wounded  and  crippled  Jewish  soldiers — all  were 
driven  out  en  masse,  without  the  slightest  regard  for 
human  comfort  or  decency.  Women  in  labor  were  given 
no  consideration  and  many  births  occurred  along  the 
route.  Mothers  were  separated  from  their  children, 
entire  families  were  broken  up  and  dispersed  all  over 
Russia.  The  Jewish  and  liberal  Russian  press  is  filled 
with  long  lists  of  victims  seeking  their  lost  relatives. 
Where    transportation    yvsls    provided,    the    exiles    were 

*  "Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"  Aug.  9,  1915,  p.  19-20. 


64         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

packed  in  cattle-cars  and  forwarded  to  their  destination 
on  a  way-bill,  like  so  much  freight.  In  many  places 
thousands  of  them  were  forced  for  weeks  at  a  time  to  stay 
in  congested  villages  which  were  absolutely  unable  to 
afford  them  a  roof  and  shelter,  or  to  sleep  in  the  freight 
cars  or  in  the  open  fields.  And  tens  of  thousands  were 
forced  to  tramp  weary  distances  along  the  open  road, 
or,  in  the  fear  of  the  soldiery,  to  take  to  the  back  roads, 
the  woods  and  swamps,  there  to  die  of  hunger  and 
exposure. 

.  The  total  number  of  Jews  who  have  been  expejled  to 
date  is  unknown.  Expulsions  are  still  going  on./  At  the 
beginning  of  June,  1915,  at  the  deliberation  of  tlie  Petro- 
grad  Central  Committee  for  the  Relief  of  Jewish  War 
Sufferers,  which  was  participated  in  by  the  most  prom- 
inent provincial  committees,  it  was  calculated  that 
the  total  number  of  homeless  Jews  ruined  by  the  ex- 
pulsion— in  Poland  and  the  northwestern  district — is 
600,000  at  the  least.*  After  the  Kovno-Kurland  ex- 
pulsions there  collected  in  the  Vilna  government  alone 
some  200,000  exiles,  f  In  Riga  there  gathered,  by  May 
18  (31),  some  9,600  families  or  42,000  persons.J  Up  to 
August  6,  1915,  there  collected  in  the.^^^overnment  of 
Volhynia  upwards  of  250,000  refugees.  §^^,^ 

Hostages 

There  is  evidence  to  indicate  that  the  Russian  govern- 
ment, overwhelmed  by  the  consequences  of  the  expulsion 
policy,    has   suggested   to   the   military   authorities   the 


*  "Hajnt,"  May  21  (June  3),  1915. 
t  "Evreyskaya  Nedelya,"  May  31  (June  13),  1915. 
t  "Evreyskaya  Nedelya,"  June  14  (27),  1915. 
§  "Retch."  Aug.  6  (19),  1915. 


EXPULSIONS— HOSTAGES  65 

advisability  of  repatriating  the  exiles;  but  these  au- 
thorities have  refused  to  consider  the  suggestion  except 
on  condition  that  the  Jews  voluntarily  give  hostages 
from  among  their  own  ranks,  these  hostages  to  include 
the  Rabbi  and  other  leading  Jews.  This  proposal  has 
been  universally  rejected  by  the  Jews  through  their 
representative  in  the  Duma,  Deputy  Friedman,  in  a 
letter  to  the  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers: 

"As  a  deputy  from  the  province  of  Kovno,  from  which  I,  to- 
gether with  all  other  Jews,  have  now  been  expelled,  I  consider  it 
my  duty  to  call  the  attention  of  your  excellency  to  the  following: — 

"According  to  the  latest  decrees  of  the  authorities  the  Jews 
who  have  been  expelled  from  their  homes  are  to  be  allowed  to 
return  on  condition  that  they  give  hostages.  This  monstrous 
condition,  which  the  government  aims  to  impose  upon  its  own 
subjects,  the  Jewish  people  v/ill  never  accept.  They  prefer  to 
wander  about  homeless  and  to  die  of  starvation  rather  than  to 
submit  to  demands  which  insult  their  self-respect  as  citizens 
and  Jews.  They  have  honestly  performed  their  duty  toward  their 
country  and  will  continue  to  do  so  to  the  very  end.  No  sacrifices 
frighten  them  and  no  persecutions  will  make  them  swerve  from 
the  path  of  honor.  But  neither  will  any  persecutions  force  them 
to  accept  a  lie,  to  give  testimony,  through  base  submission,  that 
the  monstrous  accusations  against  them  are  true.  When  the  in- 
solent enemy  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  Russia  the  Jews  arose 
to  shield  their  country  with  their  breasts,  and  I  had  the  honor 
to  appear  at  the  historic  session  of  the  Duma  as  their  spokesman 
in  the  expression  of  this  spontaneous,  inspiring  enthusiasm.  The 
Jews  gladly  assumed  all  the  sacrifices  demanded  of  them  by  their 
country  because  of  a  feeling  of  duty  to  the  land  to  which  they 
are  bound  by  century  old,  historic  bonds,  and  also  because  of  a 
sincere  hope  for  a  brighter  future.  And  I  may  say  with  deep 
conviction  that  even  now,  after  all  that  we  have  gone  through, 
this  sense  of  duty  is  as  strong  as  ever.  But  with  the  very  same 
deep  con\dction  I  consider  it  my  right  and  my  duty  to  declare  that 
no  privations  will  shake  our  firm  conviction  that  as  Russian  subjects 
we  cannot  be  made  the  victims  of  measures  applicable  only  to 
enemies  and  traitors;   that  we  consider  ourselves  and  shall  never 


66  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR   ZONE 

cease  to  consider  ourselves  above  all  suspicion  of  treason  to  our 
duty  and  our  vows.  If  the  authorities  really  desire  to  return 
the  Jewish  people  to  the  places  from  which  they  were  driven  away 
by  order  of  the  authorities  they  must  take  cognizance  of  this  feeling 
which  I  can  testify  imder  oath,  on  the  basis  of  many  conversations 
and  observations,  is  universal  among  us.  This  permission  to  re- 
turn under  shameful  conditions  is  only  a  new  and  senseless  insult. 
So  the  entire  Jewish  population  feels,  and  this  feeling  is  shared 
by  me,  their  representative." 


Misery  of  Refugees 

This  sudden  uprooting  of  an  entire  people  from  the 
land  in  which  it  has  dv^elt  for  centuries  has  brought 
irretrievable  disaster  to  the  Jews  of  Poland  and  Russia. 
It  has  been  estimated  that  nearly  three  of  the  six  million 
Jev.'S  of  Russia  and  Poland  are  now  without  means  of 
support. 

Overwhehning  and  incalculable  as  the  economic  loss 
may  be,  the  moral  losses  far  exceed  them  in  intensity. 
Jewish  communal  life  is  disrupted.  Many  of  the  cities 
and  towns  from  which  the  expulsions  took  place  were 
centers  of  Jewish  culture.  Most  of  the  Jewish  colleges 
and  schools  have  been  closed  and  many  of  the  buildings 
and  synagogues  have  been  destroyed.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  these  losses  cannot  be  repaired  for  generations  to 
come. 

The  demoralization  and  pauperization  of  the  individual 
refugees  is  painfully  noticeable  everywhere.  Beggary, 
which  was  practically  unknown  among  the  Jews,  is  now 
only  too  frequent. 

The  appalling  misery  of  the  refugees  is  fully  described 
in  the  appended  report  of  the  Russian  Jewish  Committee 
for  the  Relief  of  War  Sufferers  (see  p.  98).  The  Jews 
of  the  Empire  living  outside  of  the  war  zone,  have  assumed 


UNFAIR    ADMINISTRATION  OF  RELIEF  67 

a  system  of  self-taxation  which,  added  to  their  normal — 
or  rather  normally  excessive — burden  of  taxation  is 
practically  impoverishing  them.  The  small  Jewish  com- 
munity of  Moscow  alone  gives  about  85,000  roubles  a 
month,  ranging  from  an  average  of  200  roubles  per 
month  imposed  upon  265  manufacturers  down  to  the  10 
roubles  per  month  imposed  upon  their  poorest  clerks. 
Other  cities  are  contributing  in  proportion  but  they 
cannot  possibly  keep  pace  with  the  ever-growing  need. 

Unfair  Administration  of  Relief 

And  in  the  midst  of  this  catastrophe  the  old  struggle 
between  the  Poles  and  Jews  has  continued  with  unabated 
ferocity.  The  local  rehef  committees  refused  to  accept 
Jev/s  as  representatives,  denied  Jews  any  help  whatsoever 
and  even  drove  them  away,  by  intimidation  and  force, 
from  the  relief  stations  supported  by  their  own  people. 
Of  seventy-one  relief  committees  operating  in  Poland, 
fifty-two  contained  no  Jewish  members,  although  the 
Jews  constituted  nearly  one-half  of  the  urban  population 
and  thirteen  to  fourteen  per  cent,  of  the  rural  population 
in  these  places.  In  the  other  nineteen  committees  the 
Jewish  membership  constituted  scarcely  ten  per  cent, 
of  the  total,  although  the  Jewish  population  ran  from 
thirty-five  to  sixty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  total  popula- 
tion in  the  cities  and  from  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  in  the 
rural  districts.*  And  in  most  of  these  places  the  Jews 
had  contributed  the  major  part  of  the  relief  funds. 
Even  institutions  supported  solely  by  Jewish  contributions 
were  expropriated  by  the  Poles. 

Thus  ''the  magnificently  equipped  Hospital  for  the 
Wounded,   in  Warsaw,   created  at  the  expense  of  the 

*  "Rasviet,"  January  4  (17\  1015   -.  31-2. 


68  THE  JEWS   IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

Jewish  Kehillah,  which  had  refitted  the  Roman  Hotel 
for  the  purpose,  has  been  running  until  now  under  the 
official  name  of  the  Warsaw  Local  Rehef  Committee. 
But  this  has  turned  out  to  be  an  anti-Semite  organization 
without  a  single  Jewish  representative,  its  board  being 
made  up  of  rabid  Judeophobes,  who  feel  no  scruples  in 
the  methods  and  means  of  their  anti-Jewish  policy. 
Private  donations,  the  personal  labor  of  Jews — all  this 
has  gone  into  Polish  institutions,  all  this  has  disappeared 
in  the  Polish  river-bed,''  declares  ''Novy  Voskhod," 
Sept.  11  (24),  1914. 

The  present  attitude  of  the  Jews  of  Russia  tov/ard  this 
problem  is  well  reflected  in  a  letter,  published  in  a  recent 
issue  of  ''Evreyskaya  Zhizn,"*  from  a  Jew,  the  owner 
of  a  salt  mine,  who  had  been  invited,  among  others,  to 
contribute  salt  for  the  poorer  people  of  Warsaw,  without 
distinction  of  race  or  creed.  He  replied,  in  effect,  that 
the  proposal  met  with  his  deepest  sympathy,  but  he  took 
the  liberty  of  inquiring  as  to  who  would  have  charge  of 
the  distribution  of  the  salt.  ''Everybody  knows,"  he 
wrote,  ''the  intolerant  attitude  of  the  Polish  Relief 
Committee  toward  the  Jews.  This  makes  us  doubt 
whether  your  high  principle  would  be  carried  out  con- 
scientiously if  administered  by  Polish  hands.  The  War- 
saw Committee  is  particularly  distrusted,  and  it  would 
be  extremely  unpleasant  for  me  to  feel  that  the  neces- 
saries that  we  contributed  should  be  withheld  from  our 
own  fellow  Jews.  On  the  other  hand,  we  would  welcome 
gladly  every  effort  on  the  part  of  Russian  organizations 
to  undertake  to  cooperate  with  Poles  and  Jews  in  this 
matter  to  insure  an  equitable  distribution." 

When  the  Central  Citizens'  Committee  of  Warsaw 
was  dissolved  by  the  German  governor  of  Poland,  in 

*  July  5  (18),  1915,  pp.  30-31. 


UNFAIR  ADMINISTRATION  OF  RELIEF  6» 

September,  1915,  its  accounts  showed  that  it  had  dis- 
tributed over  eleven  miUion  roubles  (S5,500,000)  since 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  of  which  the  Jews  received 
scarcely  100,000,  although  they  constitute  one-sixth  of 
the  population  and  the  funds  had  been  gathered  with 
the  express  understanding  that  the  distribution  be  ab- 
solutely without  discrimination  between  Poles  and  Je\7S. 
The  Liquidation  Commission  which  disposed  of  the 
balance  on  hand  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
Central  Committee — some  1,290,000  roubles — allotted  it 
all  to  Polish  institutions.  Although  there  are  300,000 
Jews  in  Warsaw,  the  majority  of  them  in  dire  need, 
not  a  rouble  was  offered  for  their  relief. 

Finally  it  must  be  noted  that  the  occupation  of 
Poland  by  the  German  forces  has  afforded  little  relief 
to  the  Jews,  as  the  scarcity  of  food  in  Germany  pre- 
cludes the  shipment  of  any  considerable  quantities  of 
provisions  to  ameliorate  the  distress  of  the  starving 
Jews  of  Poland. 


70         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSIA 

The  cruelty  of  the  government's  poHcy  toward  the 
Jews  has  not  received  the  support  of  the  Russian  people, 
as  the  numerous  protests  uttered  in  the  Duma,  in  public 
assembhes  and  in  the  press  clearly  indicate.  When  it 
is  remembered  that  those  non-Jews  who,  in  Russia,  dare 
to  utter  a  word  in  favor  of  the  despised  Jews,  risk  their 
position  and  prestige  to  a  degree  unparalleled  in  any 
other  country,  the  following  calendar  of  protests  and 
manifestoes  constitutes  a  body  of  evidence  against  the 
Russian  government  which  must  compel  conviction. 

These  protests  have  been  grouped,  for  convenience, 
into  four  classes: 

THE  VOICE   OF  THE  DUMA 

Early  in  the  session  of  the  Duma  the  Left  groups 
proposed  an  interpellation  of  the  Government  with  respect 
to  its  illegal  acts  against  the  Jews.  After  some  debate 
the  proposed  questions  were  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Interpellations,  which  reported  them  out,  on  August 
30,  1915,  in  this  form: 

I.  Do  the  president  of  the  Council  of  Ministers 
and  the  Ministers  of  the  Interior  and  Justice 
know  of  the  illegal  conduct  of  their  adminis- 
trative officers  with  respect  to  the  following: 

1.  That  officers  of  the  prison  administration 
received  persons  taken  by  the  military  authorities 
as  hostages  from  the  local  Jewish  population  of 
Riga,  Prushkov    .    .     .    etc.? 

2.  That  the  prosecuting  attorneys  took  no 
steps  to  obtain  the  immediate  release  of  these 


THE  PEOPLE  VS.  THE  GOVERNMENT 

persons,  accused  of  no  crime  and  illegally  im- 
prisoned? 

3.  That  the  expelled  were  driven  by  agents  of 
the  police  in  Vilikomir,  Zhagory  and  Shadov  into 
freight  cars  inadequate  for  the  accommodation  of 
one-tenth  of  them,  and  that  the  remainder,  in- 
cluding children,  aged  men  and  women,  and 
invaUds  were  compelled  to  follow  afoot? 

4.  That  the  officers  of  the  local  governments 
took  no  steps  to  check  the  repeated  robberies  by  the 
local  population  of  the  property  left  by  the  exiles? 

5.  That  the  officers  of  the  Gendarmerie  of 
Home!  prohibited  the  supplying  of  food  to  the 
exiles,  even  though  they  were  at  the  point  of  ex- 
haustion from  hunger  and  thirst? 

6.  That  in  Novozybkov  individuals  who  sent 
telegrams  appealing  for  help  were  arrested? 

7.  That  the  officers  of  the  Gendarmerie,  with 
armed  threats,  refused  to  admit  to  sealed  cars 
persons  who  brought  food  to  the  expelled  at 
the  station  of  Bielitsa,  on  the  Poliess  railroad? 

8.  That  the  police  officers  locked  the  exiles  in 
sealed  cars  for  several  days  at  a  time? 

9.  That  in  the  shipment  of  these  exiles  from 
Zolotonosh  to  Kovno  and  back  some  of  them  were 
kept  in  the  cars  ten  days? 

10.  That  the  local  government  administration 
of  the  cities  of  Minsk,  Samara  and  Rostov  re- 
quired the  reprinting  in  the  local  paper  of  the 
story  of  Jewish  treason  in  the  village  of  Kuzhi, 
first  published  in  **Nash  Viestnik"? 

11.  That  the  local  administration  of  Tashkent 
ordered  prayer  for  the  delivery  of  the  army  from 
the  treachery  of  the  Jews? 


72  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

II.  If  the  illegal  acts  of  the  authorities  are 
known  to  the  indicated  individuals  what  steps 
were  taken  by  them  towards  the  punishment  of 
the  guilty  and  the  prevention  of  similar  breaches 
of  law  in  the  future? 

The  significance  of  this  interpellation  cannot  be 
overestimated,  insofar  as  the  facts  implied  in  these 
questions  are  officially  accepted  by  the  great  standing 
committee  of  the  Duma  as  worthy  of  cognizance.  Had 
the  questions  originally  proposed  by  the  Left  groups 
been  without  foundation  they  w^ould  have  been  rejected 
without  reference  to  the  Committee  on  Interpellations; 
and  had  the  Committee  on  Interpellations  found,  upon 
examination  of  the  evidence  underlying  each  question 
by  both  the  Right  and  Left  deputies  on  the  Committee, 
that  the  evidence  was  defective  or  inadequate,  the  in- 
terpellation v/ould  never  have  been  reported  out  in  this 
form.  The  fact  that  it  was  so  reported  indicates 
that  the  evidence  was  incontrovertible,  and  was  so 
accepted  by  the  Liberals  and  reactionaries  alike.  The 
report  of  the  Committee  is  dated  August  30,  1915,  but 
as  the  Duma  was  prorogued  immediately  afterwards, 
the  Government's  answer  to  the  interpellation  is  not  known. 

In  the  course  of  the  debates  on  ■  these  and  other 
questions  affecting  the  Jews  the  expressed  attitude  of 
the  representatives  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  Russian 
population  left  no  doubt  of  their  absolute  opposition 
to  the  Government  on  the  Jewish  question.* 

Professor  Miliukov,  the  leader  of  the  Constitutional 
Democrats,  declared  on  July  19  (August  1),  1915: 

The  strongest  factor  in  the  disruption  of  our  national  unity- 
was  the  government's  policy  toward  our  alien  subjects.     The  foul 


*  Stenographic  report  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Duma. 


VOICE  OF  THE  DUMA  73 

play  upon  the  obscure  racial  prejudices  of  the  masses,  with  the 
customary  weapon  of  this  kind  of  strife — anti-Semitism  and  the 
persecution  of  all  dissenting  nationalities  or  religions — has  been 
exercised  with  unparalleled  effrontery.  Under  the  mask  of  mili- 
tary precaution,  measures  worse  than  credible  are  taken  against 
crimes  that  are  imaginary.  .  .  .  -  At  a  time  when  nations  are 
struggling  for  the  liberties  and  rights  of  small  peoples,  such  terrible 
deeds  embitter  our  friends  and  evoke  joy  among  our  enemies." 
(Loud  applause  from  the  left.) 

Cpeputy  Kerensky.  "We  are  fighting  this  war  in  a  territory 
occupied  by  non-Russian  nationalities.  But  did  not  our  govern- 
ment, this  very  year,  cause  these  peoples  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of 
the  path  they  took  a  year  ago,  when  they  linked  their  destiny  with 
ours?" 

Deputy  Tchkheidze.  Aug.  3  (16) ,  1915 :  "It  is  v/ell  known  to  you 
that  the  Government  regime  has  been  based  on  Jewish  oppression 
and  that  at  all  critical  moments  it  aimed  its  blows  first  of  all  at  the 
Jews,  because  they  were  in  the  line  of  least  resistance.     ,    .    . 

"A  year  ago  the  war  began  and  at  once  accusations  of  treachery 
against  the  Jews  were  started  by  the  Government.  To-day  Russia 
and  the  whole  world  knows  who  is  to  blame  for  the  condition  in 
which  Russia  found  herself.  The  guilty  ones  were  not  at  all  the 
Jews,  as  the  whole  country  will  confirm,  but  those  who  stuffed  their 
pockets  with  the  money  which  they  made  on  Government  orders 
for  army  suppUes  (shouts  from  the  left:  "That's  true!")  The 
guilty  ones  were  those  who,  with  the  aid  of  men  hke  Myasoyodyeff, 
Grotgus  and  other  traitors,  betrayed  Russia.     .     .     . 

"This  is  supposed  to  be  a  war  for  Hberty,  fraternity,  and  equality, 
but  what  justice  is  there  in  making  a  whole  nation  answer  for  the 
crimes  of  individuals,  granting  that  there  are  any? 

*'In  the  name  of  what  truth  is  the  Xuzhi  slander  being  published 
in  the  *Pravitelstvenny  Viestnik?' 

*'In  the  name  of  what  truth  are  the  various  periodical  publi- 
cations ordered  to  reprint  this  communication  under  penalty  of  a 
fine? 

*'What  justice  demands  that  a  Jewish  volunteer  who  has  several 
times  been  wounded  be  expelled  within  twenty-four  hours  when 
he  tries  to  find  a  place  in  Russia  to  recover  from  his  grounds? 

*'In  the  name  of  what  humanity  is  it  forbidden  to  hand  food  to 
starving  Jewish  refugees  cooped  up  in  freight  trains?    In  the  name 


74  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

of  what  brotherhood  is  one  part  of  the  army  aroused  against  the 
Jewish  soldiers  who  are  in  the  trenches  side  by  side  with  our  own 
soldiers? 

"We  accuse  the  Germans  of  breaking  the  laws  of  warfare,  of 
using  poison  gases  and  mutilating  prisoners.  Such  acts  can  call 
forth  only  indignation  and  protest.  Let  these  acts  be  a  stain  upon 
the  ruling  classes  of  Gennany.  But,  gentlemen,  in  the  name  of 
what  laws  of  htmianity  are  orders  issued  to  the  Russian  army  to 
drive  peaceful  Jews  ahead  of  the  troops  and  to  expose  them  to 
fire? 

**In  the  name  of  what  laws  of  humanity  are  Jewish-Russian 
subjects  taken  as  hostages  and  put  into  prisons  and  tortured  and 
shot? 

"We  denounced  the  Germans  for  having  destroyed  Louvain 
and  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims ;  but  I  ask  you  in  the  name  of  what 
ethical  or  esthetic  principles  is  a  Jewish  woman  who  seeks  refuge 
in  the  synagogue  violated?" 

Baron  Rosen,  former  Russian  Ambassador  to  the 
United  States,  also  protested  outspokenly  against  the 
continuation  of  the  anti-Jewish  policy  of  the  Government 
in  a  speech  before  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  Aug.  22 
(Sept.  4),  1915.     (See  Appendix,  p.  117.) 


RESOLUTIONS  OF   CONSTITUTIONAL  DEMOCRATIC 
PARTY 

The  leading  political  partj^  of  Russia — the  Constitu- 
tional Democratic  Party — officially  voiced  its  sentiments 
on  the  Jewish  question  at  a  national  convention  of  the 
Party,  held  at  Petrograd  on  June  19-21  (O.  S.  June  6-8), 
1915,  at  which  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Party 
submitted  a  comprehensive  report  which  was  adopted 
unanimously,  and  which,  summarized  in  the  form  of  a 
resolution,  was  ordered  published.  This  resolution,  after 
citing  the  loyalty  and  patriotism  of  the  Jews  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  continues: 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSIA  75 

"This  intense  spirit  of  patriotism  manifested 
by  the  Jews  in  the  hour  of  Russia's  danger  seemed 
for  a  time  to  have  broken  down  the  rooted  prej- 
udices of  the  Government  and  to  have  cleared 
the  way  for  the  recognition  in  Russia,  of  that 
civic  equaUty  which  is  accorded  the  Jews  through- 
out the  civiHzed  world.  But  this  v/ould  have  de- 
prived our  reactionaries,  those  champions  of  an 
outlived  past,  of  their  old  and  well-tested  weapon 
of  black  demagoguery — anti-Semitism.  And  so  we 
see  that  under  the  direct  influence  of  these  noto- 
rious Jew-baiters  measures  were  earl}^  adopted  by 
the  Government  to  set  the  army  and  the  people 
against  the  Jews.  Every  advantage  was  taken 
of  the  exigencies  of  war.  Isolated  cases  of  es- 
pionage, likely  to  occur  among  the  border  popula- 
tions of  all  nations,  were  seized  upon  as  a  basis  for 
universal  accusations  and  furnished  the  occasion 
for  the  invention  of  incredible  myths  and  rumors 
circulated  exclusively  to  the  injury  of  the 
Jews.  .  .  .  The  Jews  have  been  held  col- 
lectively responsible  for  the  acts  of  individuals 
among  them — a  policy  which  outrages  the  most 
elementary  sense  of  justice,  a  policy  which  is  no 
longer  sanctioned  by  the  laws  of  any  civilized 
land,  a  monstrous  survival  of  the  remote 
past.  .  .  .  Needless  to  mention  the  spread  of 
discord  and  hatred,  the  growth  of  mutual  suspicion 
and  distrust  among  the  races  inhabitating  Russia 
which  must  of  necessity  follow  such  a  policy.   .    .    . 

"Not  only  in  the  name  of  brotherhood;  not 
only  in  the  name  of  that  harmony  so  necessary 
where  different  nationalities  are  fated  to  live 
tinder  the  shelter  of  a  common  government;   not 


76         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

only  for  the  sake  of  keeping  alive  among  the 
Jewish  people,  now  being  driven  to  despair,  some 
hope  of  a  brighter  future,  and  some  faith  in  that 
progress  of  which  they  have  ever  been  the  valiant 
champions,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  the  attairmient 
of  that  ideal  of  the  Russian  people — the  elevation 
of  our  beloved  Fatherland  to  the  status  of  a  truly 
enlightened  empire — ^must  we  offer  united  opposi- 
tion against  the  forces  of  reaction.  .  .  .  Our 
adversaries  hope  to  continue,  even  after  the  war, 
to  use  the  poisoned  weapon  of  primitive  race 
hatred  which  they  have  used  until  now.  It  is  our 
task  to  demonstrate  to  the  masses  of  the  people 
that  they  are  again  being  duped,  that  their  base 
passions  are  now  being  aroused  in  order  to  dis- 
tract their  attention  from  their  own  vital  interests. 
We  must  continue,  as  before,  to  point  out,  firmly 
and  persistently,  that  there  is  only  one  path  to 
a  brighter  future  for  Russia,  the  same  path  along 
which  the  entire  civilized  world  has  traveled, 
and  that  along  this  road  there  is  only  one  solution 
of  the  Jewish  question — a  solution  demanded  by 
the  most  elementary  principles  of  civilized  govern- 
ment— and  that  is  to  grant  them,  as  individuals, 
full  civic  rights,  and  as  a  people,  the  right  to  free 
racial  and  cultural  self-development-^*^ 

A  striking  incident  occurred  during  the  debate  upon 
this  resolution.  One  of  the  leaders  of  the  party,  Maklakov, 
a  brother  of  the  former  Minister  of  the  Interior,  advanced 
a  plea  in  extenuation  of  the  alleged  Jewish  treacheries. 

''The  Jews  have  suffered  such  cruel  persecutions  in 
Russia/'  he  remarked,  "that  they  might  well  be  excused 
even  if  these  spy  stories  were  found  to  be  true." 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSIA  77 

**We  spurn  this  right  to  baseness,"  cried  out  former 
deputy  Vinaver,  a  Jew.  *'Our  loyalty  is  not  for  sale. 
We  are  not  newcomers  here.  Our  ancestors  have  lived 
here  for  hundreds  of  years.  We  are  patriots  because 
we  feel  ourselves  bound  to  Russia.  We  believe  in  Russia 
even  more  than  you  do." 

PROTESTS   OF  PUBLIC   OFFICIALS,    CITIES,   ETC. 

Various  municipalities  outside  the  Pale  have  peti- 
tioned the  government  to  give  equal  rights  to  the  Jews. 

The  Municipal  Council  of  Smolensk,  at  its  session  of 
December  19,  1914  (January  1,  1915),  passed  a  resolution, 
with  only  two  dissenting  votes,  petitioning  the  govern- 
ment ^'to  abolish  all  measures  which  restrict  the  rights 
of  Russian  subjects  of  the  Jewish  faith,  and,  in  particular, 
to  abolish  the  Pale  of  Settlement."  At  this  session 
Councillor  P.  V.  Mikhailoff  said: 

"We  are  referring  not  only  to  those  families  of  Jewish  soldiers 
at  the  front,  to  famihes  fleeing  from  devastated  Poland,  but  even 
to  the  soldiers  themselves  who  are  placed  hors  de  combat  because 
of  their  wounds,  after  having  vahantly  served  in  our  ranks. 
Thus,  for  example,  a  Jewish  soldier  wounded  in  the  hand  and 
in  the  breast,  having  parents  in  this  city,  obtained  permission 
only  with  the  utmost  difficulty  to  stay  here  three  months.  At  the 
end  of  this  period  he  must  go  back  to  the  Pale  and  live  there  without 
means  or  medical  attention,  although  he  is  threatened  with  tuber- 
culosis. .  .  .  This  is  merely  one  case  in  thousands  which 
prove  to  us  the  horrors  of  the  situation  in  which  Jewish  soldiers 
and  their  famiUes  are  placed  because  of  their  deprivation  of  civic 
rights.  Those  families  whose  members  have  shed  their  blood 
for  Russia  are  ruined  by  the  invasion  of  the  enemy.  They  arrive 
here  to  find  a  refuge  from  starvation  and  death,  from  ruin  and 
violation.  We  must  remember  that  nearly  a  half  milHon  Jews 
are  fighting  side  by  side  with  our  brave  warriors  against  the  common 
enemy.  As  to  the  civihan  Jews,  they  have  no  less  patriotism  or 
enthusiasm   than   the   other   inhabitants.     .     .     .    His   Majesty, 


78  THE  JEWS   IN   THE   EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

the  Emperor,  in  passing  through  Lubhn,  Grodno,  and  Tiflis,  haa 
deigned  to  express  his  thanks  to  the  Jews  for  their  faithfulness 
to  our  common  country.  The  conclusion  from  this  is  clear :  There 
is  no  serious  reason  to  maintain  any  longer  those  measures  of 
restriction  so  futile  and  so  pernicious  and  so  malevolent.  .  .  . 
But  the  Jewish  question  is  not  merely  a  question  of  abstract 
justice.  The  economic  and  moral  development  of  our  city  life 
is  seriously  retarded  by  the  restrictions  placed  upon  one  part 
of  the  population.     .     .     ."* 

In  August,  1914,  a  meeting  of  municipality,  Zemstvo, 
Stock  Exchange,  and  University  officials  and  merchants, 
at  Odessa,  resolved  that  the  country  would  benefit  by 
the  abohtion  of  all  repressive  laws  and  the  opening  of 
educational  institutions  to  all  citizens,  t 

In  August,  1914,  the  Moscow  Conference  of  Mayors 
also  forcibly  condemned  the  expulsion  policy  of  some 
governors  and  resolved  to  use  its  influence  to  amefiorate 
the  position  of  the  Jews.f 

So  also  the  Congress  of  Delegates  from  cities  of 
Western  Siberia  petitioned  for  the  abolition  of  all  Jewish 
disabilities.  § 

Within  the  past  few  months  the  municipalities  of 
Samara,  Saratov,  Ekaterinoslav  and  other  important 
centers;  the  Siberian  Municipal  Conference,  and  the 
Conference  of  twenty  Zemstvos  held  at  Yaroslavl,  all 
petitioned  the  government  and  the  Duma  to  remove  the 
disabilities  affecting  the  Jews  of  Kussia. 

PROTESTS  OF    TRADE  AND    PROFESSIONAL    ORGANIZA- 
TIONS 

The  Military-Industrial  Committee,  organized  in  May, 
1915,  to  integrate  the  economic  resources  of  the  country 
on  a  war  basis,  met  on  August  25,  1915,  and  condemned 

*  "Novy  Voskhod,"  Dec.  30,  1914  (Jan.  12,  1915),  p.  22-24. 

t  "Novy  Voskhod,"  Sept.  4,  1914,  p.  15. 

X  "Novj'  Voskhod,"  Aug.  14  (27),  1914,  p.  24-25. 

§  "Novy  Voskhod,"  April  24  (May  7),  1915,  p.  30. 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSL^  79 

the  incompetence  of  the  government  openly.  In  his 
presidential  address  P.  P,  Riabushinski  deplored  the 
tardiness  of  the  government  in  calling  upon  the  social 
forces  of  the  country.  *'This  leadership  of  the  country 
has  been  attempted  by  persons  incapable  of  leadership, 
and  it  is  now  evident  to  everybody  that  a  new  personnel 
is  needed  within  the  government.  .  .  .  We  have 
observed  the  workings  of  the  government  departments 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  war,  and  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  these  departments  are  unable  to  cope 
with  the  situation.  The  supply  of  war  material  is  al- 
together unorganized,  as  the  army  well  knows.  .  .  . 
The  government  will  from  now  on  transfer  to  us  more 
and  more  of  its  functions.  But  the  longer  this  is  deferred 
the  less  benefit  will  result.  .  .  .  This  work  cannot 
be  done  through  a  poorly  organized  government.  .  .  . 
The  State  is  a  huge  business  enterprise,  whose  parts 
must  work  harmoniously.  .  .  .  The  war  has  now 
changed  from  a  struggle  of  will  and  spirit  into  a  struggle 
of  machinery.  Therefore,  the  persons  entrusted  with 
the  defense  of  the  country  must  know  the  country.  .  .  . 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  Russia  is  at  the  present  moment 
facing  a  great  danger,  and  we  fear  that  the  time  may 
come  when  our  courage  will  sink.  .  .  .  (censored). 
Our  army  is  suffering  heroically.  .  .  .  (censored).  We 
know  that  after  a  while,  with  the  war  continuing  in  the 
same  poor  fashion  as  at  present,  the  government  will 
be  ready  to  meet  us  half-way,  but  we  also  know  by 
experience  that  it  will  then  be  too  late  and  even  the  very 
best  man  called  by  the  government  wiU  be  unable  to 
accomplish  anything." 

This  address  was  met  with  thunderous  applause. 
Another  speaker.  Prof.  E.  L.  Zubashov,  referring  to  the 
Jews,  declared  that:    *The  sons  of  the  Jewish  nation 


80         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

are  now  fighting  side  by  side  with  the  Russians  for  their 
country.  Unfortunately  this  country  has  until  now  been 
only  a  step-mother  to  them.  Let  us  express  the  hope 
that  it  may  now  become  a  mother  to  them."  He  there- 
fore proposed  a  resolution  favoring  the  abolition  of  all 
restrictive  laws  against  the  Jews.  His  proposal  was  met 
with  prolonged  applause  and  was  accepted  by  the  con- 
vention.* 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Free  Economic  Society — the 
foremost  economic  organization  of  Russia — on  January 
16,  1915,  the  following  resolution  was  adopted  unan- 
imously : 

"The  Commission  .  .  .  has  taken  into  account  the  excep- 
tionally difficult  position  in  which  the  Jewish  population  finds 
itseK,  in  view  of  the  residence  restrictions  to  which  they  are  subject. 

"While  they  are  suffering  all  the  terrors  of  war  together  with 
the  rest  of  the  population,  the  Jewish  population,  being  mainly 
urban,  has  suffered  particularly  from  the  general  disorganization 
of  economic  relations  not  only  within  the  immediate  region  of 
mihtary  activities,  but  far  beyond. 

"Under  these  conditions  it  would  be  a  great  relief  to  the  suffering 
population  if  measures  were  adopted  which  would  make  it  easier 
for  them  to  move  about  in  search  of  work.  In  view  of  the  size 
of  our  country  and  the  unlimited  economic  resources  of  its  regions, 
especially  those  of  the  interior,  have  hardly  been  touched  by  the 
miseries  of  war.  There  are  regions  in  the  interior  of  Russia  where 
economic  conditions  have  even  improved  somewhat,  since  they 
have  assumed  many  of  the  industries  abandoned  in  Poland,  and 
since  the  commissary  department  placed  large  orders  here. 

"At  the  same  time  the  Jewish  population  is  even  at  this  excep- 
tional time  artificially  confined  to  the  cities  of  Poland  and  the 
western  provinces  by  force  of  existing  legal  limitations  which  in- 
creases the  hardships  of  war  for  them.  If  in  time  of  peace  these 
restrictions,  which  are  economically  harmful  and  morally  degrading, 
are  recognized  as  a  relic  of  barbarism  that  must  be  abolished,  it 


*  "Retch,"  July   28  (Aug.    10),    1915;   "Birzhevyia    Viedomosti,"    Aug.    26 
(Sept.  8),  1915. 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSIA  81 

is  all  the  more  difficult  to  reconcile  ourselves  with  them  at  the 
present  time,  when  hundreds  and  thousands  of  Jews  serve  under 
the  Russian  banners  on  the  battlefield. 

In  view  of  these  facts  the  Commission  has  decided  to  request  the 
Council  of  the  Free  Economic  Society  to  communicate  with  the 
government  and  members  of  the  society  who  are  members  of  the 
legislative  bodies: — 

"To  immediately  stop  the  functioning  of  all  restrictive  laws 
relating  to  the  Settlement  rights  of  Jews,  and 

**To  abolish  them  immediately  and  permanently  by  legislative 
enactment."* 

Numerous  commercial  and  technical  associations  have 
passed  resolutions  declaring  that  the  main  cause  of 
Russia's  economic  backwardness  lay  in  the  restrictions 
placed  upon  Jews,  and  that  the  sole  means  of  combating 
German  predominance  over  Russian  industry  and  trade 
is  through  the  abolition  of  these  restrictions.  Among 
these  organizations  are  the  national  grain,  lumber,  fur 
and  gold  trades;  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  of  Moscow, 
Petrograd  and  the  leading  cities  of  Russia  and  Siberia, 
and  the  national  Congress  of  Bourses;  the  Russo-American 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  etc.  Practically  every  national 
convention  of  every  industry  has  petitioned  the  govern- 
ment to  liberate  the  economic  talents  of  the  Jews  by  the 
removal  of  all  legal  restrictions. 

PROTESTS  OF    RUSSIAN  WRITERS    AND   PUBLICISTS 

Just  as  the  commercial  and  industrial  elements  of 
Russia  demand  equality  for  the  Jews  on  economic  grounds, 
so  the  intellectual  elements  of  Russia  demand  it  on  broad 
human  grounds. 

The  great  manifesto  issued  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  by  225  of  the  leading  publicists  and  v/riters  of  Russia, 
declares : 


*  "Rasviet",  Jan.  25  (Feb,  7),  1915. 


82         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

"Russia,  in  the  present  great  war,  is  straining  all  her  physical 
and  intellectual  forces  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  All  the  peoples 
of  Russia  are  taldng  part  in  the  war,  sharing  equally  in  aU  the  labors. 
We  beUeve  that  the  blood  of  the  fighters  is  not  being  shed  in  vain, 
We  beheve  that  after  having  borne  the  horrors  of  the  war,  the 
population  will  return  with  increased  energy  to  the  work  of  building 
for  a  better  and  brighter  future.  This  we  beheve,  and  we  hope 
that  the  relations  between  the  different  peoples  that  inhabit  Russia 
will  be  built  up  in  the  future  on  the  eternal  foundations  of  wisdom 
and  justice. 

"But  at  this  moment,  so  important  in  history,  we  see  with 
sorrow  and  consternation  that  to  the  sufferings  of  one  of  the  nation- 
ahties  inhabiting  Russia  new  distress  and  new  vexations  are  added. 
The  Hmitation  of  the  right  of  education  is  now  felt  with  particular 
pain  by  the  Jewish  youth.  As  the  Western  frontiers  are  closed 
the  usual  exodus  to  the  foreign  schools  is  checked,  while  in  Russia 
itself  the  percentage  hmitations  against  the  Jews  in  the  schools 
are  maintained  in  force.  The  Jews  of  the  destroyed  towns  have 
no  right  to  leave  the  Pale  of  Settlement,  a  measure  which  often 
leads  to  a  disintegration  and  a  division  of  members  of  famihes, 
wives  and  children  of  wounded  soldiers  not  being  allowed  to  visit 
their  husbands  and  fathers,  and  being  at  the  same  time  exposed 
to  all  sorts  of  chicanery.  The  sorely-tried  Jewish  nation  which 
has  given  to  the  world  such  precious  contributions  in  the  domain 
of  religion,  of  philosophy,  of  poetry;  which  has  always  shared  the 
travails  and  trials  of  Russian  life;  which  has  been  hurt  so  often 
by  prejudice  and  insult;  which  more  than  once  has  proven  its  love 
for  Russia,  and  its  devotion  to  her  cause,  is  now  again  exposed  to 
unjust  accusations  and  persecutions. 

"The  Russian  Jews,  who  are  industriously  working  with  us 
in  all  spheres  of  labor  and  activity  that  are  accessible  to  them, 
have  given  so  many  convincing  proofs  of  their  sincere  desire  to  be 
with  us,  to  render  service  to  our  cause  .  .  .  that  the  hmitation 
of  their  right  of  citizenship  is  not  only  a  crying  injustice,  but  also 
reacts  injuriously  upon  the  very  interests  of  the  State.  The  Russian 
Empire  can,  and  must,  draw  its  strength  from  the  complete  union 
of  all  the  nationahties  inhabiting  Russia,  and  only  by  the  placing 
of  all  citizens  upon  an  equal  footing  will  the  power  of  Russia  become 
indestructible. 

"Russians,  let  us  remember  that  the  Russian  Jew  has  no  other 
country  than  Russia,  and  that  nothing  is  dearer  to  a  man  than 


PROTESTS  OF  LIBERAL  RUSSIA  88 

the  soil  on  which  he  is  bom.  Let  us  understand  that  the  pros- 
perity and  power  of  Russia  are  inseparable  from  the  well-being  and 
the  liberty  of  all  the  nationalities  which  constitute  its  vast  Empire. 
Let  us  understand  this  truth,  act  according  to  our  intelligence  and 
our  conscience,  and  we  may  be  certain  that  the  ultimate  disappear- 
ance of  persecutions  against  the  Jews  and  their  complete  emanci- 
pation will  form  one  of  the  conditions  of  a  truly  constructive 
imperial  regime." 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

The  total  estimated  Jewish  population  of  Austria- 
Hungary  is  about  2,250,000,  of  which  nearly  one  million 
were,  at  the  begimiing  of  the  war,  in  the  border  province  of 
Galicia,  in  the  immediate  area  of  hostilities. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  Jews  manifested  their  keen 
loyalty  by  trooping  to  the  colors  even  when  they  were 
normally  exempt,  as  in  the  case  of  the  students  of  the 
Budapest  Rabbinical  Seminary,  many  of  whom  volun- 
teered, although  not  required  to  do  so.  The  Government 
recognized  this  loyalty  in  many  ways,  particularly  in 
the  granting  of  special  privileges  with  respect  to  the 
observances  required  by  the  Jewish  religious  ritual. 
Thus  the  Emperor,  in  his  own  name,  sent  20,000  Tallithim 
(prayer  shawls)  for  the  soldiers  in  the  field  during  the 
holidays.  When,  at  Passover,  it  was  discovered  that 
the  matzoths  for  the  Jev/ish  troops  had  been  improperly 
prepared,  the  Government,  at  the  instance  of  the  Chief 
Rabbi  of  Vienna,  authorized  the  wholesale  distribution 
of  potatoes  to  Orthodox  Jews. 

Hundreds  of  Jewish  soldiers  have  been  decorated  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  many  were  given  ofiicers'  com- 
missions. 

GALICIA 

It  was  the  million  Jews  of  Galicia  who  were  made  to 
feel  the  full  burden  of  the  war.  Although  their  economic 
condition  before  the  war  was  greatly  inferior  to  that 
of  the  general  population,  their  political  condition  was 
one  of  equality.  But  the  Russian  invasion  of  Galicia, 
in   September,    1914,    changed    their    status   overnight. 

84 


GALICIA  86 

The  Russian  Governor-General,  Count  Bobrinski,  a 
notorious  anti-Semite,  found  the  poUtical  status  of  the 
Jews  in  Galicia  most  abhorrent  to  him.  He  at  once 
proceeded  to  degrade  them  to  the  status  of  the 
Russian  Jews,  and,  if  possible,  still  lower.  He  proposed 
to  his  home  Government  that  all  Jewish  landed  property 
in  Galicia  be  confiscated  and  the  Jews  be  forbidden  to  own, 
lease  or  rent  land;  and  this,  he  added,  was  an  imme- 
diately imperative  step,  to  be  carried  out  even  before 
the  formal  annexation  of  Galicia  was  announced! 

On  February  13,  1915,  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas 
issued  an  order  declaring  that  ''in  view  of  the  increase 
of  spying  on  the  part  of  the  Jews,  it  is  decreed  that: 

1.  No  person  of  Jewish  nationality  may  enter  Galicia. 

2.  No  persons  of  Jewish  nationality  may  pass  from  one  district 

of  Galicia  into  another. 

3.  Infractions  of  this  decree  will  be  pxmished  by  a  fine  of  three 

thousand  roubles  ($1,500)  or  by  three  months'  imprison- 
ment.* 

The  spirit  of  these  documents,  communicated  to  the 
troops,  produced  a  series  of  outrages  against  the  Jewish 
population  more  horrible  even  than  any  perpetrated 
in  Russia.  As  each  town  was  invaded  by  the  Russians 
the  troops  first  sought  the  Jewish  quarters,  and  here 
they  let  themselves  loose  in  an  orgy  of  pillage,  sack  and 
rapine. 

In  the  tov>n  of  Bohorodczany  there  appeared,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1915,  a  detachment  of  Austro-Polish  troops.  They 
demanded  food  and  quarters  and  were,  of  course,  sup- 
plied. After  a  brief  stay  they  departed.  But  the  act 
of  the  Jews  was  reported  to  the  Russian  commander  in 
Stanislau.  He  immediately  sent  a  ''punitive"  expedition 
of  four  hundred  Cossacks  to  the  town.     They  set  the 


"Prikarpatskia  Russ". 


86         THE  JEWS  IN    THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

town  on  fire,  routed  out  the  Jewish  women  and  girls 
from  their  places  of  concealment,  assembled  them  in 
the  square  and  there  held  an  orgy  under  the  open  sky. 
After  their  lusts  were  satisfied  they  drove  the  victims 
under  the  crack  of  the  whip,  half  naked  and  starving, 
along  the  roads  to  Stanislau.  One  v/oman,  who  had 
risen  from  childbirth  only  a  few  days  before,  died  on 
the  way.  One  of  the  physicians  of  Stanislau,  Dr.  B., 
testifies  that  he  alone  treated  ten  cases  of  women  and 
girls  who  had  been  violated.* 

In  Szczerzec,  Galicia,  the  Russian  soldiers  caught 
one  Jacob  Mischel,  a  town  councillor,  poured  oil  over 
him  and  burned  him  alive,  j 

In  Dembica,  Cossacks  raided  a  synagogue  to  which 
the  Jews  had  fled  for  refuge  and  prayer,  robbed  and 
imprisoned  the  men,  and  outraged  the  women.  Those 
who  escaped  through  the  windows  were  caught  by  the 
guards  below  and  men  and  women  were  knouted  to  death. 
Then  the  troops  set  fire  to  the  synagogue 4 

These  are  typical  cases  of  outrages  perpetrated  against 
the  Jewish  population  of  Galicia.  Scarcely  a  town  in 
the  line  of  invasion  escaped.  The  Jewish  population  fled 
before  the  invaders  in  vast  numbers. 

There  are  about  175,000  Jewish  refugees  in  Vienna; 
70,000  of  these  are  destitute.  There  are  about  70,000 
living  in  barracks  in  Bohemia;  8,000  of  these  are  in  Prague. 
There  were  about  52,000  in  Budapest.  "'AH  fugitives  who 
have  settled  in  Hungary,  however,  have  been  removed 
to  Austria  proper.  Dr.  J.  Bloch  of  Vienna,  estimates 
that  the  total  number  of  Jewish  refugees  from  Galicia 
is  about  half  a  million.    The  situation  of  these  refugees 


*  "Judisches  Archiv,"  p.  5. 
f  "Judisches  Archiv,"  p.  6. 
X  "Judisches  Archiv,"  p.  10. 


GALICIA  87 

is  somewhat  better  than  that  of  the  Jewish  refugees  in 
Russia,  inasmuch  as  the  Government  has  placed  them 
in  concentration  camps,  attends  to  their  minimum  wants 
and  gives  each  one  an  allowance  of  70  heller  (14  cents) 
daily.  With  the  rise  in  the  prices  of  food,  the  daily 
allowance  has  risen  to  about  90  heller  (18  cents)  per 
capita.  They  are  treated  well  by  the  population,  and 
in  many  cases  are  provided  with  some  work. 


ROUMANIA 

The  future  of  Roumania  is  of  interest  to  the  Jews 
for  two  especial  reasons:  first,  because  the  Jews  of 
Roumania  are  deprived  of  their  rights  as  citizens  in 
contravention  of  a  solemn  promise  made  by  Roumania 
to  the  Great  Powers  at  the  Berlin  Congress  in  1878; 
secondly,  because  it  will  no  doubt  be  Roumania's  aim 
to  win  back  from  Austria-Hungary  certain  large  terri- 
tories, including  Transylvania  and  Bukowina,  in  which 
the  bulk  of  the  population  is  of  Roumanian  descent, 
thus,  if  successful,  incidentally,  increasing  the  number 
of  Jews  under  Roumanian  rule  from  about  250,000  to 
more  than  one  million. 

During  the  present  war  Roumania  has  given  evidence 
of  its  hostile  attitude  towards  the  Jews.  Thousands  of 
Jev/ish  refugees  who  fled  before  the  savagery  of  the 
Russian  army  w^hich  invaded  Bukowina,  sought  refuge 
in  Roumania.  These  were  treated  with  great  brutality 
by  Roumanian  officials  in  the  border  towns.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  July,  1915,  the  Government  issued  an  order  to 
the  administrative  authorities  of  all  the  districts  bordering 
on  Austria-Hungary  to  expel  all  the  Jews  from  the  locali- 
ties near  the  frontier,  and  to  send  them  to  the  interior 
of  the  country.  The  officials  took  advantage  of  this  edict 
to  expel  not  only  the  refugees,  but  also  hundreds  of 
Jewish  citizens  of  Roumania  who  had  been  living  in  the 
border  towns  for  generations.  The  order  of  expulsion 
was  executed  summarily,  and  the  Jews  were  forced  to 
leave  within  forty-eight  and  in  some  cases  with  all  their 
goods  in  twenty-four  hours.  As  a  rule,  they  were  not 
permitted  to  take  their  belongings  with  them,  and  even 

89 


90         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  they  had  perforce 
to  leave  them  behind  because  they  knew  neither  their 
destination  nor  their  fate. 

This  action  of  the  Government  caused  a  great  deal  of 
adverse  comment  in  the  press.  ''Vitorul"  the  official 
organ  of  the  Liberal  Party,  now  in  power,  met  these 
attacks,  in  its  issue  of  July  12,  1915,  as  follows: 

"Some  of  the  newspapers  pretend  that  the  Ministry  of  Internal 
Affairs  has  given  orders  that  the  native-born  Jews  estabhshed  in 
the  towns  bordering  upon  the  northern  frontier  of  Moldavia  be 
sent  into  the  interior  of  the  country.  This  news  is  inexact.  The 
Minister  of  Internal  Affairs  was  not  aiming  at  the  Jews  established 
in  the  towns  near  the  frontier  or  in  any  other  place  when  he  issued 
his  order  of  expulsion.  The  order  given  by  the  Minister  of  Internal 
Affairs  concerns  only  the  ahen  subjects  of  a  foreign  country,  and  the 
native-bom  Jews  who,  though  not  living  in  frontier  towns  go  there 
on  business,  acting  as  cereal  brokers.  And  the  purpose  of  the  order 
is  to  prevent  such  people  from  committing  acts  dangerous  to  the 
interests  of  the  population  of  the  state.  The  peaceful  Jewish 
population  Uving  near  the  frontier  is  not  the  object  of  any  hounding, 
as  the  irresponsible  newspapers  would  have  it." 

The  Bucharest  ''Adeverul"  (Truth),  an  independent 
organ,  and  one  of  the  two  newspapers  in  Bucharest  which 
sympathize  with  the  Jews,  rephed: 

"In  answer  to  the  attacks  of  the  Government  organ  upon 
the  'irresponsible'  newspapers,  we  are  in  a  position  to  publish  a 
hst  of  the  'peaceful  Jewish  population'  which  has  been  the  subject 
of  the  most  terrible  persecutions  by  the  authorities.  We  can  give 
the  names  of  the  reserves,  mobilized  at  the  very  moment,  v/hose 
children  have  been  driven  from  their  homes.  It  is  possible  that 
the  Minister  of  Internal  Affairs  did  not  mean  to  'aim,'  as  the  official 
organ  says,  at  the  Jews.  If  the  Minister  is  innocent  of  the  charge, 
we  would  like  to  know  what  punishment  to  inflict  upon  his  sub- 
ordinates who  wiKully  misrepresented  his  order. 

"But  it  is  not  we  who  are  irresponsible.  It  is  the  Government 
that  tries  to  mislead  the  pubUc  with  ambiguous  statements.  It  says 
that  the  order  referred  only  to  the  brokers,  who  may  commit  dan- 


ROUMANIA  91 

gerous  acts.  We  know  that  the  law  punishes  crimes  and  dehn- 
quencies  which  have  been  committed,  but  does  not  anticipate  crimes 
that  7nay  be  committed.  Then  again,  the  law  provides  strict 
punishment  for  each  delinquency  and  not  a  general  and  preventive 
punishment,  such  as  deportation.  Why  is  it  that  those  who  have 
committed  the  infraction  have  not  been  arrested  and  peaceful 
people  are  being  punished  instead? 

"Even  the  Government  recognizes  that  this  preventive  punish- 
ment is  apphed  to  the  alien  and  such  Jews  as  are  only  doing  business 
though  not  hving  in  those  places.  It  means  that  the  suspicion 
rests  equally  upon  the  ahen  and  the  Roumanian  Jew,  because  the 
Jew,  although  not  an  ahen,  is  of  another  religion.  The  suspicion 
then  falls  upon  all  the  native-born  Jews.  Thus  we  see,  that  even 
if  the  official  organ's  pubhc  interpretation  of  the  law  be  correct, 
it  is  still  the  Jews  who  will  suffer.  But  we  cannot  accept  the 
explanation.     It  is  false. 

"It  is  an  absolute  fact  that  not  transient  traders  but  people 
who  are  innocent,  who  are  paying  taxes  in  those  locahties  have 
been  expelled." 

It  is  idle  to  speculate  as  to  what  Roumania  may  do  if 
she  becomes  involved  in  the  war.  But  it  is  well  to  consider 
whether,  if  she  does  not  become  involved,  it  will  be  possible 
to  bring  to  the  attention  of  the  belligerent  powers  at  a 
future  peace  conference  the  question  of  the  status  of  the 
Jews  of  Roumania.  These  are  in  the  anamolous  position 
of  people  virtually  without  a  country.  They  are  subjects 
of  Roumania,  pay  taxes  and  support  the  Government. 
But  even  the  native-born  and  those  whose  parents  and 
grandparents  were  native-born  subjects  of  Roumania, 
cannot  become  citizens,  and  are  also  discriminated  against 
by  the  Government.  In  this  respect,  Roumania  may  be 
called  "Little  Russia.'' 

The  situation  of  Roumania  as  a  nation  is  exceptional. 
She  was  made  an  independent  country  by  the  European 
Powers,  meeting  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  after  the 
Russo-Turkish  War  of   1877-8.     In  a  treaty  which  was 


92  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

then  signed   by   all  the  great  Powers   of   Europe,  the 
following  articles  were  inserted: 

XLIII.  The  High  contracting  parties  recognize  the  inde- 
pendence of  Roumania,  subject  to  the  conditions  set  forth  in  the 
two  following  articles. 

XLIV.  In  Roumania  the  difference  of  rehgious  creeds  and 
confessions  shall  not  be  alleged  against  any  person  as  a  ground 
for  exclusion  or  incapacity  in  matters  relating  to  the  enjoyment 
of  civil  and  political  rights,  admission  to  pubhc  employments, 
functions  and  honors,  or  the  exercise  of  the  various  professions 
and  industries  in  any  locality  whatsoever. 

"The  freedom  and  outward  exercise  of  all  forms  of  worship 
shall  be  assured  to  all  persons  belonging  to  the  Roumanian  State, 
as  well  as  to  foreigners,  and  no  hindrance  shall  be  offered  either 
to  the  hierarchical  organizations  of  the  different  communions,  or 
to  their  relations  with  their  spiritual  chiefs.  The  subjects  and 
citizens  of  all  the  Powers,  traders  or  others,  shall  be  treated  in 
Roumania,  without  distinction  of  creed,  on  a  footing  of  perfect 
equality." 

Roumania  having  become  an  independent  nation 
upon  its  recognition  by  these  Powers,  and  upon  the 
conditions  set  forth  in  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  it  may  be 
possible  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war  that  the  viola- 
tions of  this  treaty  on  the  part  of  the  Roumanian  Govern- 
ment may  be  considered  by  the  Powers  whose  honor  is 
thus  flaunted  by  an  open  violation  of  a  treaty  to  which 
they  solemnly  became  parties. 


PALESTINE 

The  Jews  of  Palestine  were  among  the  earliest  victims 
of  the  war.  The  greater  part  of  them  are  dependent, 
wholly  or  in  part,  upon  their  co-religionists  in  Europe 
and  America.  With  the  outbreak  of  the  war  all  the 
normal  channels  of  communication  were  temporarily 
interrupted.  Even  had  this  not  occurred  the  complete 
stagnation  of  trade  in  Europe  would  have  made  it  impos- 
sible for  the  Jews,  who  were  themselves  in  difficulties,  to 
continue  to  afford  material  assistance. 

The  difficulties  of  the  situation  before  Turkey  became 
a  belligerent  are  briefly  set  forth  in  the  following  extracts 
from  a  report,  dated  October  21,  1914,  made  by  Mr. 
Maurice  Wertheim,  who  was  entrusted  by  Ambassador 
Morgenthau  with  the  distribution  of  a  fund  of  $50,000 
contributed  by  American  Jews. 

The  colonists  themselves  did  not  stand  in  actual  need  of  assist- 
ance, as  they  are  largely  men  of  certain  means  and  can  help  them- 
selves. Furthermore,  they  are  able  to  obtain  their  bank  deposits 
in  the  following  manner:  the  Anglo-Palestine  Bank,  with  which 
most  of  the  Jews  in  Palestine  do  business  through  theu-  various 
branches  in  Jaffa,  Jerusalem,  Haifa,  Safed,  and  Tiberias,  etc.,  are 
registering  or  certifying  for  their  depositors  checks  down  to  the 
smallest  denominations.  These  checks  are  made  payable  to  the 
drawer,  endorsed  by  him,  and  the  registration  stamp  of  the  bank 
is  equivalent  to  a  notice  that  the  check  will  be  cashed  by  the  bank 
after  the  moratorium.  With  these  checks  the  colonists  are  able 
to  supply  their  immediate  needs  and  harvest  their  crops. 

The  only  pressing  requirement  of  the  colonists  was  to  exchange 
some  of  these  checks  for  gold  in  order  to  pay  Government  taxes 
and  mihtary  exoneration  fees,  and  this  was  arranged. 

Further  than  this,  the  two  great  needs  of  the  Jewish  colonies, 
generally  speaking,  were:  (a)  to  take  care  of  Jewish  laborers 
thrown  out  of  emplojTuent  by  existing  conditions,  and  (b)  to  secure 

93 


94         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

new  markets  for  their  products  to  take  the  place  of  those  that  hat 
been  affected  by  the  war. 

There  are  about  2,500  Jewish  laborers  in  the  colonies.     It  i 
impossible  to  determine  the  exact  percentage  of  unemployed  amongs 
them,  but  even  if  we  assume  that  only  half  of  them  are  out  of  emplo} 
ment,  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  amount  of  money  we  were  able  t 
divert  to  this  purpose  will  not  go  very  far.     I  might  say  here  th£  ^ 
in  dividing  the  fund  amongst  the  various  districts  in  Palestine, 
we  allotted  to  the  colonies  a  somewhat  larger  proportion  than  their 
population  justified. 

The  opening  up  of  new  markets  for  Palestinian  agricultural 
products  (oranges,  wine  and  almonds,  are  the  chief  articles  of  export), 
is  probably  the  most  pressing  need  of  the  colonist  movement  in 
Palestine.  Colonists  feel  that  the  chief  market  for  the  oranges 
which  in  the  past  has  been  England,  will  be  greatly  interfered  with, 
and  if  they  are  not  able  to  dispose  successfully  of  their  products, 
their  entire  future  and  very  existence  will  be  threatened. 

The  situation  in  the  larger  centers  of  population  is  very  bad. 
Almost  no  currency  enters  the  country  and  foreign  checks  that  do 
find  their  way  there  are  not  reaUzable.  This  naturally  places 
in  great  want  those  who  depend  on  the  "Chaluka"  contributipns 
and  also  the  large  class  who  depend  on  money  sent  by  relatives. 
Furthermore,  the  industries  of  manufacture  of  antiques  and  s^  .iv- 
enirs  are  completely  stopped,  owing  to  want  of  customers, 
there  is  no  money  to  conduct  industries  such  as  building,  carpei 
ing,  tailoring  and  shoemaldng,  in  which  large  numbers  of  Jews 
are  employed.  I  found  that  the  better  class  of  Jews  had  themselves 
organized  temporary  relief,'  but  their  possibiHties  of  assistance 
are  rapidly  drawing  to  a  close.  People  who  had,  a  few  weeks  before 
my  visit,  contributed  to  the  maintenance  of  soup  kitchens,  stood 
in  need  themselves  upon  my  arrival.  One  Jewish  hospital  had 
already  closed. 

The  food  situation  in  Palestine  was  precarious,  for  while  prices 
had  not  risen  to  any  large  extent,  yet  the  source  of  supply  was 
limited.    The  introduction  of  wheat  from  the  East  of  the  Jordar 
had  been  prohibited  by  the  Government  (which  restriction  th    • 
the  efforts  of  the  Ambassador  we  have  endeavored  to  have  1 
In  order  to  guard  against  possible  shortage  of  food  and  2 
offer  food  at  the  cheapest  possible  price,  our  Committee  wi 
chase  from  time  to  time  as  large  quantities  of  food  as  it  car 
bread  baked  itself,  and  will  sell  same  at  cost,  or  possibly  a  litt         -^ 


PALESTINE  95 

When  Turkey  entered  the  war  as  an  ally  of  Germany 

ad  Austria-Hungary  the  situation  of  the  50,000  Russian 

^ws,   who   constituted  half  of  the  Jewish   population 

;    Palestine,    became   precarious.     As   nationals   of   an 

lemy  country,  they  became  hable  to  any  restrictions 

o/   deprivation   of   rights   which   military   necessity   or 

international    animosity    might    dictate.         Thus    these 

thousands  of  Jews  were  to  suffer  because  they  technically 

bore  the  nationality  of  a  country  which  had  virtually 

exiled  them. 

Upon  the  intervention  of  the  German  and  American 
Embassies,  however,  the  Ottoman  Government  made 
special  concessions  to  these  Jews.  Several  weeks'  time 
was  allowed  for  those  who  so  desired  to  become  Turkish 
subjects  by  naturalization.  Upon  the  expiration  of  this 
period,  those  who  had  not  availed  themselves  of  this  offer 
were  ordered  to  leave.  About  600  were  forcibly  expelled 
am^  about  7,000  others  left  voluntarily.  Most  of  the 
fu(  tives  took  refuge  in  Egypt,  whence  a  number  emigrated 
'  'le  United  States.  In  the  spring  of  1915,  however, 
,  Council  of  Ministers  decided  that  the  deportations 
be  discontinued. 

The  difficulties  of  the  economic  situation  of  the  Jewish 
population  were  further  increased  by  Turkey's  entrance 
in  the  war.  The  Government  confiscated  most  of  the 
crops,  and  a  great  many  of  the  settlers  were  either  drafted 
into  the  army  or  compelled  to  buy  immunity. 

In  March,   1915,  the  American  Jewish   Relief  Com- 
mittee   and    the    Provisional    Zionist    Committee    were 
-it^^d,  through    the    courtesy    of   the    United  States 
nment,  to  send  a  food  ship  to  Palestine.     Although 
erable  portions  of  these  supplies  were  diverted  by 
jrkish  Government  into  non-Jewish  channels,  the 
t         .uestion  was  to  a  great  extent  solved,  and  conditions 


96         THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

have  been  steadily  improving.  The  present  situation 
is  briefly  described  in  the  following  extracts  from  a 
report  of  the  Provisional  Executive  Committee  for 
General  Zionist  Affairs,  dated  August  10,  1915: 

The  economic  situation  has  also  shown  some  improvement. 
The  arrival  of  the  rehef  food  ship  "Vulcan"  has  been  partly  responsi- 
ble for  this  result.  After  considerable  discussion  with  the  govern- 
ment authorities,  the  following  ratio  of  distribution  has  been  agreed 
upon;  55  per  cent,  for  the  Jews,  26  per  cent,  for  the  Mohammedans, 
and  19  per  cent,  for  the  Christians. 

The  sending  of  the  relief  ship  has  had  the  important  effect 
of  lowering  considerably  the  prices  of  food.  The  gathering  of  the 
harvest  is  now  in  full  swing.  The  crops  are  satisfactory,  especially 
in  GaUlee,  which  is  principally  a  corn  growing  country.  Our 
farms,  in  particular,  have  proved  an  important  factor  in  the  present 
crisis  by  supplying  the  colonies  and  cities  with  grain  at  reasonable 
prices.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  Palestine  will  now  be  able 
to  hold  its  ov.Ti  in  the  matter  of  food,  without  depending  on  further 
shipments  from  America.  There  is  still  some  shortage  felt  in  sugar 
and  in  some  less  important  groceries,  of  which  small  quantities 
may  still  be  procured  from  Egypt. 

The  economic  prospects  would  be  considerably  brighter  were 
it  not  for  the  locust  which  has  swept  over  Palestine  in  large  numbers. 
In  corn-growing  GaHlee  the  danger  is  less  palpable  than  elsewhere 
where  plantations  are  the  principal  feature  of  agriculture.  The 
fight  against  the  plague  has  been  taken  up  energetically  and  system- 
atically. 

The  danger  of  a  shortage  in  grain  was  another  problem  that 
needed  careful  consideration.  While  in  normal  times  Palestine  is 
in  a  position  to  export  grain  abroad,  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  owing 
to  the  heavy  requisitions  of  the  Government  and  the  difficult  com- 
munications with  the  North  of  Palestine  and  the  Hauran,  the 
granaries  of  the  country,  brought  an  alarming  situation.  To  deal 
with  it,  a  special  committee  v/as  organized.  A  number  of  well- 
to-do  Jews  bought  up  quantities  of  grain  and  had  them  milled, 
offering  the  flour  to  the  public  at  cheap  prices.  In  this  way  the 
danger  threatening  the  population  from  unscrupulous  speculators 
was  averted  and  the  prices  were  kept  down.  Thus,  when,  shortly  be- 
fore Passover,  the  price  of  flour  had  soared  up  as  high  as  65  francs. 


PALESTINE  97 

the  action  of  the  committee  had  the  effect  of  reducing  it  to  48.     The 
committee  also  supplied  public  institutions  with  cheap  flour. 

As  another  means  of  reUef,  public  stores  were  opened  by  the 
committee  for  the  sale  of  provisions.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  some 
of  the  goods  were  requisitioned  by  the  government,  the  stores  served 
a  good  purpose,  helping,  among  other  things,  to  circulate  the  checks 
of  the  Anglo-Palestine  Company. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  crisis,  the  Palestina  Amt  made 
it  a  rule  that  no  workingmen  were  to  be  dismissed,  as  such  action 
might  subject  them  to  the  danger  of  starvation.  To  supply  all 
the  workingmen  with  employment,  public  works  were  undertaken, 
such  as  road  building,  canaKzation  and  water  supply.  Several 
builders  who  had  been  forced  to  discontinue  their  building  operations 
were  assisted  with  loans  to  resume  them. 

Finalij'^,  a  Pubhc  Loan  Association  was  organized  to  meet  the 
needs  of  those  who  had  formerly  received  remittances  from  abroad, 
and,  owing  to  the  discontinuation  of  these  remittances  consequent 
upon  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  found  themselves  in  pitiable  circum- 
stances. Some  900  persons  took  advantage  of  the  facihties  offered 
by  tJ2e  Association. 

/  According  to  the  statistics  compiled  by  the  Palestina  Amt  and 
emEodied  in  a  separate  report,  some  8,000  Jews  left  the  country 
during  the  crisis.  Of  these,  4,000  were  from  Jaffa,  2,000  from  Jeru- 
salem, 1,500  from  the  Judean  colonies  and  500  from  the  colonies 
in  Galilee.  The  estimated  number  of  Jews  at  present  in  >Palestine 
is  88,100,  of  whom  13,500  are  to  be  found  in  the  colonies,    y 

The  requisitions  and  the  war  contributions  levied  iipon  the 
Jews  during  the  war,  amount  to  152,805  francs. 


APPENDIX 


I. 


REPORT  OF  THE  RUSSIAN- JEWISH  RELIEF 

COMMITTEE 

NOTE. — The  following  report  was  issued  by  the  (Russian) 
Jewish  Committee  for  the  Relief  of  Sufferers  from  the  War, 
to  its  members  in  Russia,  in  May,  1915,  since  when  con- 
ditions in  Russia  and  Poland  have  steadily  grown  worse. 
The  authoritativeness  of  the  re-port  is  guaranteed  by  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  committee,  numbering  among  its  membership 
the  foremost  Jews  of  Russia,  arnong  whom  may  be  named: 
Baron  A.  de  Gunzberg,  H.  SUosberg,  M.  Ginsburg  and  B. 
Kamenka,  chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee;  M.  A. 
Warschavsky,  chairman  of  the  Organizijig  Committee;  and 
D.  Feinberg,  L.  Bramson  and  M.  Kreinin,  Secretaries. 

Terrible  disaster  has  befallen  the  Jewish  population 
of  the  Pale  of  Settlement  and  of  Poland.  Hunger  and 
thirst  and  disease  and  death,  and  moral  sufferings  beyond 
the  power  of  human  pen  to  describe  are  the  lot  of  himdred 
thousands  of  Jewish  men,  women  and  children  whom  the 
war  has  driven  from  their  homes,  whose  houses  and 
hearths  have  been  plundered  and  destroyed.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  of  our  unfortunate  brethren  are  staring 
in  hopeless  despair  into  a  future  that^  seems  to  speU 
nothing  but  new  tears  and  sufferings.      ... 

According  to  the  data  collected  by  the  General  Polish 
Relief  Committee,  in  Poland,  alone  there  are  at  least  200 
towns  and  about  9,000  townlets  and  villages  that  have 
suffered  from  the  war,  the  material  damage  amounting 
to  the  gigantic  figure  of  over  a  milliard  roubles  ($500,000,- 
000).  Besides  the  terrible  lossses  sustained  by  the  rural 
population,  the  whole  industrial  production,  amounting 

98 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  99 

to  nearly  800  million  roubles  a  year,  has  been  ruined. 
About  three  million  townspeople  are  destitute,  and  of 
these  three  million  at  least  half,  i.  e.,  1,500,000,  are  Jews. 
To  this  number  of  unfortunate  victims  we  have  to  add 
the  population  of  the  provinces  of  Kovno  and  Grodno  in 
the  northwestern  region  of  the  Pale,  the  provinces  of  Bes- 
sarabia, Podolia  and  Volynia  in  the  southern  and  south- 
western regions.  These  provinces,  bordering  upon  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  have  a  Jewish  population  of  at  least 
500,000  people.  Thus  the  total  number  of  Jews  that 
have,  in  one  way  or  another,  suffered  immediately  from  the 
conditions  of  warfare  equals  over  two  million  people, 
representing  one-third  of  the  total  Jewish  population  of 
Russia.> 

Besides,  there  are  hundred  thousands  of  destitute 
Jews  in  Galicia  (within  Russian  occupation)  looking 
forward  to  relief  from  this  country. 

To  the  utter  ruin  of  their  material  welfare  there  are 
added  the  unspeakable  sufferings  that  the  population 
of  the  war  area  has  to  endure.  In  the  most  favorable 
of  cases  the  inhabitants  of  the  border  places  escape  from 
the  zone  of  fire,  taking  refuge  in  the  inner  parts  of  the 
country;  while  a  large  proportion  of  those  unfortunate 
Jewish  families  have  remained  in  the  ruined  places, 
facing  the  phantoms  of  starvation  and  disease  that 
gather  a  rich  harvest  among  them. 

Such  is  the  devotion  and  love  of  the  Jews  to  their 
native  places,  to  their  own  corner,  that  they  prefer  to 
stay  in  the  devastated  towns  and  townlets  and  villages, 
if  only  permitted  to  do  so.  And  those  who  have  fled 
from  their  homes  take  the  first  opportunity  of  return- 
ing, heedless  of  the  terrible  disasters  lying  in  store  for 
them.  A  vivid  example,  typical  of  many  other  instances, 
is  given  by  the  Jews  in  the  villages  of  Vissiltsy,  District 


100        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Busak,  province  Kielce.  Our  delegate  found  the  place 
razed  by  hostile  shells.  The  population — mostly  Jews — 
for  over  three  months  had  been  huddling  together  in 
cellars,  where  they  had  taken  refuge.  They  were  not 
to  leave  their  shelter  by  day;  no  food  was  to  be 
cooked,  no  fire  lighted  at  night — such  were  the  stringent 
orders  from  military  quarters.  A  humane  military  chief 
permitted  them  to  crawl  out  of  their  dingy  holes  by  night 
and  feed  out  of  the  soldiers'  cauldron.  But  soon  another 
chief  took  his  place  and  the  unfortunate  Jews  were  left 
to  starve  in  their  cellars.  Those  that  succumbed  were 
buried  in  holes  that  the  survivors  dug  for  them  in  the 
very  same  cellars.    .    .    . 

Infinitely  tragic  too  is  the  fate  of  those  Jews  who, 
by  rigorous  orders  of  the  military  authorities  at  a  notice 
of  from  three  to  twenty-four  hours  are  expelled  from 
whole  provinces  of  Poland,  their  presence  near  the  area 
of  hostilities  being  considered  "(x  danger  to  the  safety 
of  the  Russian  arms."  Leaving  their  homes  and  belong- 
ings, the  fruit  of  years  of  hard  toil,  an  open  prey,  the 
unfortunate  exiles  by  the  thousands  wend  their  weary 
way  to  towns  and  villages,  thirty  or  more  miles  distant, 
that  have  not  yet  come  within  the  decrees  of  the  military 
authorities.  Old  men,  sick  women,  clasping  little  children 
in  their  arms,  carrying  bundles  with  some  scanty  belong- 
ings that  they  had  snatched  up  in  haste,  fill  the  silent 
roads  with  the  sound  of  their  moans  and  sobs.  Here 
an  old  man  breaks  down,  breathing  his  last  sigh  in  the 
middle  of  the  road.  There  a  woman  kneels  by  the  road- 
side staring  in  despair  too  deep  for  tears,  at  the  child 
that  lies  dead  in  her  arms.  .  .  .  Many  are  those 
who  succumb  on  their  way;  indescribable  are  the  suffer- 
ings of  those  who  survive.  Scarcely  have  they  found 
shelter   in   a   hospitable   town   or   townlet   when — alas! 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  101 

too  frequently — the  prohibition  of  the  authorities  is 
a  few  days  later  extended  also  to  these  places,  and  again 
the  Jewish  population  must  start  upon  its  weary  pil- 
grimage.    .     .     . 

The  total  number  of  refugees  from  the  war  zone  and 
of  exiles  can  scarcely  be  calculated  with  precision  because 
large  numbers  have  made  their  way  to  numerous  small 
townlets  throughout  the  Pale,  thus  frustrating  systematic 
registration,  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  progress  of  the 
war  tends  to  swell  the  host  of  refugees  daily. 

Some  idea  of  their  number  is  given  by  the  following 
approximate  figures: 

Warsaw 75,000  people  Radom 2,000  people 

Vilna 12,000  people  Gussiatin 1,000  people 

Kielce 3,000  people  Shakvi  (Suvaild).  1,500*  people 

Konsk 4,000  people  Lomzha 5,000  people 

Minsk 2,000  people  Khmelnik 

Prassnysh 1,500  people  (Prov.  ICielce).  1,500  people 

And  yet  these  figures  only  show  the  number  of  refugees 
who  have  applied  for  assistance;  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  others  are  meanwhile  living  upon  their  savings  and 
do  not  come  under  the  registration.  But  they  also  will 
be  at  the  end  of  their  scant  resources  one  of  these  days 
and  will  join  the  ranks  of  the  destitute.  .  .  .  Thus, 
for  the  above-named  places  and  for  many  other  dozens 
of  towns  and  townlets  the  number  of  refugees  within 
their  walls  may  be  doubled  without  fear  of  exaggeration. 

While  numerous  towns  and  townlets  have,  in  generous 
hospitality,  opened  their  gates  to  the  unfortunate  refugees 
and  exiles  from  the  war  area,  the  native  Jewish  population 
of  these  places  is  itself  suffering  a  severe  economic  crisis, 
an  acute  attack  of  unemployment,  which  as  a  matter 


*  At  moment  of  investigation. 


102        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

of  fact,  is  further  intensified  by  the  influx  of  refugees 
eager  to  offer  their  services,  for  the  smallest  remuneration. 
Thus  poverty  and  misery  are  growing  in  these  places 
too,  the  burden  of  relief  becoming  too  heavy  for  the 
local  community  to  bear. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  industrial  life  of 
Poland  and  in  a  large  part  of  the  Pale  has  been  laid 
waste  as  a  consequence  of  the  war.  Hundreds  of  fac- 
tories have  been  destroyed,  hundreds  others  have  had  to 
stop  work  for  want  of  capital,  raw  material,  fuel  and — 
first  and  foremost — for  want  of  a  market  for  their  articles 
of  production.  Many  thousands  of  workmen  who  were 
formerly  employed  by  these  factories  have  remained  with- 
out bread. 

Whole  branches  of  trade  have  been  shattered,  burying 
the  welfare  of  the  artisans  under  their  ruins.  The 
tailors,  weavers,  bootmakers,  builders,  trades,  normally 
sustaining  a  large  percentage  of  Jews  in  Poland  and  in 
the  Pale,  are  dead;  the  artisans  are  left  to  starve,  unless 
something  can  be  done  to  save  them. 

Commercial  life  also  has  been  laid  waste.  The  mer- 
chants— great  and  small — are  ruined;  hundreds  of  mer- 
chant's clerks  are  thrown  out  of  work  and  have  to  apply 
to  public  charity. 

There  is  yet  another  class  of  sufferers  whose  wants 
and  needs  have  to  be  attended  to.  About  300,000  Jews 
are  fighting  in  the  ranks  of  the  Russian  army.  Their 
mothers,  wives  and  children  are  receiving  but  scanty 
support  (about  2  roubles  a  head)  from  the  Government. 
About  half  of  them,  however,  are  not  getting  any  Govern- 
ment aid  at  all,  their  marriages,  although  legally  solemn- 
ized, not  having  been  entered  in  the  official  marriage 
registers.  (It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  the  uneducated 
Jews  of  Poland  and  in  the  Pale  frequently  omit  to  have 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  103 

their  marriages  registered,  failing  to  realize  the  full  im- 
portance of  this  formality.)  Rent  and  food  having 
become  considerably  dearer  with  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
the  soldiers'  families  often  suffer  acute  want,  which 
necessitates  immediate  help  lest  these  people  become 
charges  on  their  community.  Many  of  the  soldiers  will 
never  return  from  the  battlefields;  others  will  come 
back  as  cripples,  unfit  to  support  themselves  or  their 
families.  They  will  all  want  support  of  some  kind  or 
another.     .     .     . 

It  is  a  boundless  sea  of  troubles  that  has  to  be  coped 
with  and  the  full  weight  of  the  task  is  falling  upon  Jewish 
shoulders.  The  gulf  dividing  the  bulk  of  Russian  society 
from  Jewish  life  and  needs  and  sorrows  has  not  been 
bridged  over  by  the  horrors  of  war.  Though  now  and 
again  a  voice  of  sympathy  is  heard  from  Russian  quarters, 
here  and  there  a  Russian  hand  is  extended  to  feed  a 
starving  Jewish  child,  both  moral  and  material  assistance 
offered  by  non-Jews  to  our  stricken  people  is  but  in- 
finitesimal as  compared  with  the  magnitude  of  the  distress. 

Nor  do  we  now  wish  to  dwell  specifically  on  Pofish- 
Jewish  relations,  it  being  too  well  known  to  what  extent 
they  have  become  pointed  during  the  recent  months, 
bearing  in  their  train  infinite,  yea,  unbearable  sufferings 
for  our  Jewish  brethren. 

In  order  to  unite  the  efforts  of  Jewish  society  towards 
the  relief  of  the  Jewish  sufferers  from  the  war,  at  the 
very  outbreak  of  the  European  conflagration  there  was 
formed  at  Petrograd  a  General  Jewish  Relief  Committee, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Russian  authorities,  to  act  as 
a  center  for  the  collection  and  distribution  of  funds 
to  the  destitute  and  needy  Jews.  At  the  very  beginning 
of  its  activity  the  General  Committee  issued  an  appeal 
to  the   Jewish   public    calling   it    to    its   duty   to   the 


104        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

unfortunate  sufferers,  just  as  the  Jewish  soldiers  fighting 
and  distinguishing  themselves  in  the  ranks  of  the  Russian 
army  are  doing  their  duty  by  their  mother  country. 

Jewish  society  at  large  has  shown  its  usual  responsive- 
ness and  material  support  has  been  forthcoming  in  as 
large  a  measure  as  individual  means  and  circumstances 
would  permit. 

Committees,  similar  to  the  General  Committee,  work- 
ing on  the  same  hnes  and  in  close  unity  with  it  have  since 
been  organized  in  prominent  centers  of  the  stricken  area 
and  outside  of  it — e.  g.,  in  Warsaw,  Moscow,  Kiev, 
Odessa,  Kharkov,  and  in  addition  the  existing  Jewish 
organizations,  such  as  the  Central  Committee  of  the 
Jewish  Colonization  Association,  the  Society  for  the 
Promotion  of  Education  in  Hussia,  the  Jewish  Health 
Society,  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Trade  and 
Industry  among  Russian  Jews,  etc.,  etc.,  are  taking  active 
part  in  the  relief  work.  Representatives  of  the  various 
committees  and  societies  working  in  the  war  zone  and  out- 
side it  meet  periodically  in  order  to  discuss  new  measures 
and  schemes  for  the  alleviation  of  the  terrible  distress. 

The  conditions  and  extent  of  distress  in  towns,  town- 
lets  and  villages  of  Poland  and  of  the  Pale  are  being 
ascertained  through  delegates  of  the  General  Relief 
Committee  working  actively  and  energetically  towards 
the  organization  of  various  forms  of  relief  in  the  several 
districts.  In  a  number  of  places  the  local  Jewish  com- 
munity has  readily  joined  in  the  rehef  work,  doing  its 
utmost  to  meet  the  demand  for  food,  shelter,  clothing; 
the  local  philanthropic  and  communal  Jewish  institutions 
thus  becoming  valuable  agencies  of  the  General  Relief 
Committee.  On  the  whole,  however — particularly  as  far 
as  Poland  is  concerned — the  organization  of  assistance 
to  the  war  sufferers  is  meeting  with  endless  difficulties, 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  105 

due  largely  to  the  fact  that  the  suffering  population  is 
in  such  a  state  of  frantic  terror,  that  many  Jews  do  not 
even  dream  of  applying  to  anyone  for  assistance.  In 
many  instances  the  first  terror  has  given  way  to  com- 
plete apathy. 

Often  our  representatives  have  to  seek  these  people 
out  in  their  hiding  places,  to  rouse  them  from  their 
lethargy,  to  exercise  moral  pressure  on  the  more  promi- 
nent members  of  the  community,  before  anything  can 
be  done  for  the  sufferers.  This  attitude  of  the  people 
becomes  intelligible  when  we  consider  the  conditions 
that  they  live  in  under  ordinary  circumstances — their 
poverty,  their  lack  of  education,  the  contempt  they  are 
accustomed  to  meet  with  on  the  part  of  the  non- Jewish 
population. 

Similar  conditions  prevail  in  the  Galician  Provinces 
within  Russian  occupation: 

*'I  found  them  huddling  together  in  damp  and  dark 
cellars,  half-naked,  sick  and  starving" — these  are  the 
words  of  one  of  our  representatives  who  visited  some  of 
the  places  that  had  witnessed  all  the  horrors  of  the  war. 
**They  showed  complete  apathy,  appeared  to  be  in  a  trance 
of  terror.  Only  a  madman — ^he  had  become  insane 
because  of  superhuman  suffering — ^followed  me  into 
the  street,  shrieking  for  bread.  I  handed  him  a  coin, 
but  he  threw  it  down  and  clamored  for  bread.    .    .    ." 

The  ever  changing  conditions  of  war,  that  open 
up  new  regions  for  relief  work  today,  and  close  other 
districts  tomorrow,  that  throw  ever  new  crowds  of 
sufferers  upon  public  charity — these,  to  a  large  extent 
bafhe  all  our  efforts  towards  relief,  destroying  today 
what  was  organized  yesterday.  Add  to  this  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  Jewish  life  in  Russia,  the  unfavorable 
attitude  of  the  authorities  towards  the  Jewish  population 


106        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

in  the  war  area — and  the  difficulties  that  the  organization 
of  relief  has  to  cope  with  will  stand  out  in  their  full 
significance. 

Owing  to  these  and  other  conditions  the  General 
Relief  Committee  up  till  now  has  had  to  concentrate 
largely  on  extending  * 'first  aid,"  this  term  being  here 
used  to  comprise  feeding  and  sheltering  of  the  sufferers. 
Distribution  of  food  (at  low  rates  or  free  of  charge), 
of  fuel,  clothes,  foot-wear;  organization  of  feeding  centres, 
amelioration  of  sheltering  and  housing  conditions,  of 
sanitation  and  hygiene  among  the  war  sufferers — are 
the  chief  forms  relief  has  taken  so  far. 

At  the  present  moment  there  are  being  equipped 
by  the  General  Relief  Committee  two  so-called  ''sanitary 
and  feeding  expeditions"  whose  object  it  will  be  to  offer 
medical  assistance  and  provide  free  food  to  the  sufferers 
in  the  war  area  of  Poland,  irrespective  of  religious  de- 
nomination. (The  money  for  this  purpose  has  been 
received  from  London  with  the  express  condition  that  no 
distinction  be  made  between  Jews  and  non-Jews). 

Moreover,  insofar  as  this  has  been  possible,  efforts 
have  been  made  to  secure  v/ork  for  the  refugees  and 
for  those  who  have  lost  their  employment  as  a  result 
of  the  war.  Thus  in  Warsaw  there  has  been  opened  a 
workshop  where  refugees  are  employed  in  manufacturing 
various  articles  of  underclothing  for  distribution  among 
the  war  sufferers.  In  Vilna  there  has  been  established 
a  workshop  for  bootmakers  who  are  filling  Govern- 
ment orders  for  army  boots.  Similar  workshops  have 
been  organized  at  Dvinsk,  Fastov,  etc.  Further,  there 
has  been  opened  at  Warsaw  a  labor-bureau  which  is 
obtaining  work  for  a  considerable  number  of  artisans. 

A  large  number  of  small  merchants  and  artisans  being 
in  urgent  need  of  credit  to  enable  them  to  re-establish  and 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  107 

operate  their  business  and  to  prevent  them  from  lapsing 
into  utter  destitution,  credit  is  being  afforded  them 
through  the  medium  of  the  Jewish  cooperative  credit 
societies  that  are  working  throughout  the  Pale  of  Settle- 
ment and  Poland.  So  far,  by  way  of  experiment,  about 
23,000  roubles  have  been  invested  in  this  operation; 
however,  should  this  useful  form  of  assistance  be  en- 
larged, considerable  means  will  be  required  for  the 
purpose. 

At  the  present  moment  the  General  Relief  Com- 
mittee, working  in  close  cooperation  with  the  com- 
mittees in  Moscow,  Kiev  and  Odessa,  is  extending  relief 
to  over  300  centres  of  population  situated  in  the  following 
provinces: 

Approximate  Number 
Poland —  of  Populated  Centers 

Province  Warsaw   (including  city  of 
Warsaw  where  a  large  number  of 

refugees  are  concentrated) 46 

Province  Vilna 18 

Province  Kovno 40 

Province  Suvalki 20 

Province    Liublin    (only    part    of    it  25 

being  accessible  to  relief  work) .... 
Province  Kielce  (only  part  of  it  being 

accessible  to  relief  work) 12 

Province  Radom 15 

Province    Grodno    (now   included   in 
sphere     of     activity     of     Moscow 

Committee) 5 

Province   Lomzha    (now   included   in 
sphere     of     activity     of     Moscow 

Committee) 10 

Province    Plotsk    (now    included    in 
sphere     of     activity     of     Moscow 

Committee) 8 

Province  Kholm  (now  within  activity 

of  Kiev  and  Odessa  Committee) .  .  10 


108        THE  JEWS  IN   THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

Approximate  Number 
of  Populated  Centers 
Southwestern  Province — 

Province:     Podolia,    Bessarabia    and 

Volynia  (Border  districts) 10 

Galicia — 

Petrograd     Committee     (cooperating    • 

with  Kiev  and  Odessa  Committee) .  75 

Outside  War  Area 10 

Total 304 

Some  idea  of  the  expenditures  of  the  General  Rehef 
Committee  in  Petrograd  is  given  by  the  following  figures : 

FOR    GENERAL    RELIEF 

Poland —  Roubles 

Warsaw 350,000 

Province  Warsav*^ 10,000 

Lodz 1,500 

Province  Lomsha 12,000 

Province  Suvalki 7,000 

Province  Liubiin 75,000 

Province  Radom 45,000 

Province  Cholm 4,400 

Province  Kielce 40,000 

545,000 

Southwestern  Province — 

(Border  Places) 14,000 

Radzivilov 14,000 

Chtin 5,000 

Volotchisk 5,000 

Gorokov 1,000 

Novosselitsy 500 

Various  small  places 5,000 

31,000 


RUSSIAN  JEWISH  RELIEF  COMMITTEE  109 

Northwestern  Province —  Roubles 

Province  Kovno 65,000 

Province  Vilna 30,000 

Province  Bialystock,  Minsk,  etc 10,000 

95,000 

Galicia 112,000 

Assistance   to    Jews   in   Palestine   and    Syria    (through 

representative  in  Alexandria) 10,000 

Assistance    to    Russian- Jewish    Refugees    from    Abroad 

(when  passing  Petrograd) 1,500 

Assistance  to  Wounded  and  Recovered  Soldiers  return- 
ing to  the  Front 15,000 

Purchase  of  Matzoth  for  Soldiers  at  the  Front  (subsidy 

to  the  Rabbinical  Committee) 15,000 

Subsidy  to  Various  Educational  Institutions  (Yeshiboth, 

Jewish  teachers,  etc.) 16,000 

Organization  of  cheap  credit  to  Jewish  artisans,  workmen 
and  merchants    (through  Jewish  Cooperative    Credit 

Societies) 22,000* 

Assistance   to    clerks   of    Jewish    Cooperative    Societies 

(affected  by  the  war) 1,000 

Organization  and  support  of  sanitary  and  feeding     ex- 
peditions (two  expeditions) 50,000 

Total 914,000 

Expenditure  of  the  Moscow,  Odessa,  Kiev  Committees . . .    350,000 

l,204,000f 

According  to  approximate  estimates  within  the  next 
months  the  General  Jewish  Relief  Committee,  working 
conjointly  with  the  Jemsh  Committees  in  Moscow,  Kiev 


*  Besides  the  sums  granted  to  the  cooperative  credit  societies  by  the  Jewish 
Colonization  Association. 

t  Towards  these  expenses  Russian  Jewry  has  contributed  a  little  over  a  million 
roubles. 


110        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

and  Odessa,  will  require  the  following  sums  to  satisfy 
the  most  urgent  needs  of  the  organizations  now  in  full 
operation  and  yet  to  be  started : 

Poland  and  Northwestern  Provinces —  Roubles 

Warsaw From  150,000  to  200,000 

Province  Warsaw From  15,000  to  20,000 

Province  Liublin From  20,000  to  25,000 

Province  Suvalki From  12,000  to  15,000 

Province  Radom From  20,000  to  25,000 

Province  Kielce From  20,000  to  25,000 

Province  Kovno From  25,000  to  30,000 

Province  Vilna From  10,000  to  15,000 

Province  Grodno From      8,000  to  10,000 

Province  Lomzha From  15,000  to  20,000 

Province  Plotzk From  6,000  to  8,000 

Province  Cholm From  10,000  to  12,000 

Southwestern  Provinces — 

Province  Volynia From  20,000  to    25,000 

Province  Podolia 

Province  Bessarabia From  40,000  to    50,000 

Oalicia — 

Outside  war  area From    10,000  to    15,000 

Restoration  of  trade  and  industry  among 

among  war  sufferers From  100,000  to  150,000 

Extraordinary  expenditure From    10,000  to    15,000 

Thus From  484,000  to  650,000 

[Expressed  in  United  States  currency,  the  simi  of  $242,000  to 
$325,000  per  month  will  be  required,  according  to  this  early 
estimate,  to  satisfy  the  most  urgent  needs  of  the  sufferers.] 

As  already  pointed  out,  the  sphere  and  extent  of 
distress  are  ever  increasing  with  the  progress  of  the  war. 
The  Jewish  reUef  organizations  in  Russia  thus  stand 
before  the  alarming  problem:  whence  to  obtain  adequate 


SPEECH  OF  DEPUTY  FRIEDMAN  111 

funds  to  satisfy  the  ever  growing  demand.  This  problem 
becomes  the  more  urgent  as  new  forms  of  relief  must  be 
devised  as  the  time  goes  on.  It  will  not  do  merely  to 
feed  and  shelter  the  stricken  population.  Many  of  the 
sufferers  are  able  and  willing  to  work,  if  they  but  had  the 
possibility  of  doing  so. 

The  attention  of  the  Jewish  pubHc  will  therefore 
have  to  be  concentrated  on  a  new  problem:  to  help  the 
ruined  artisans  to  rehabilitate  themselves,  to  rebuild 
their  shattered  homes  and  to  restore  their  ruined  business 
by  means  of  cheap  credit  provided  for  them.  The 
solution  of  this  problem  will,  however,  require  infinitely 
larger  means,  which  Russian  Jewry  is  unable  to  raise.  .  .  . 


n. 

SPEECH    OF    DEPUTY    FRIEDMAN    IN 
THE    DUMA 

(August  2,  1915) 

(Translated  from  Petrograd  "Retch,"  of  August  3,  1915,  and 
published  in  the  New  York  "Times,"  September  23,  1915) 

In  spite  of  their  oppressed  condition,  in  spite  of  their 
status  of  outlawry,  the  Jews  have  risen  to  the  exalted 
mood  of  the  nation  and  in  the  course  of  the  last  year 
have  participated  in  the  war  in  a  noteworthy  manner. 
They  fell  short  of  the  others  in  no  respect.  They  mobil- 
ized their  entire  enrollment,  but,  indeed,  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  they  have  also  sent  their  only  sons  into  the 
war.  The  newspapers  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  had 
a  remarkable  number  of  Jewish  volunteers  to  record. 
Gentlemen,  those  were  volunteers  who  were  entitled 
through   their    educational   qualifications    to    the    rank 


112        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

of  officers.    They  knew  that  they  would  not  receive 
this  rank ;  and  nevertheless  they  entered  the  war. 

The  Jewish  youth,  which,  as  a  result  of  the  restrictions 
as  to  admission  to  the  high  schools  of  the  country,  had 
been  forced  to  study  abroad,  returned  home  when  war 
was  declared,  or  entered  the  armies  of  the  allied  nations. 
A  large  number  of  Jewish  students  fell  at  the  defense 
of  Liege  and  also  at  other  points  on  the  western  front. 

The  Zionist  youths,  when  they  were  confronted  with 
the  dilemma  of  accepting  Turkish  sovereignty  or  being 
compelled  to  emigrate  from  Palestine,  preferred  to  go 
to  Alexandria  and  there  to  join  the  English  army. 

The  Jews  built  hospitals,  contributed  money,  and 
participated  in  the  war  in  every  respect  just  as  did  the 
other  citizens.  Many  Jews  received  marks  of  distinction 
for  their  conduct  at  the  front. 

Before  me  lies  the  letter  of  a  Jew  who  returned  from 
the  United  States  of  America: 

"I  risked  my  life,"  he  writes,  ''and  if,  nevertheless, 
I  came  as  far  as  Archangel,  it  was  only  because  I  loved 
my  fatherland  more  than  my  life  or  that  American  free- 
dom which  I  was  permitted  to  enjoy.  I  became  a  soldier, 
and  lost  my  left  arm  almost  to  the  shoulder.  I  was  brought 
into  the  governmental  district  of  Courland.  Scarcely 
had  I  reached  Riga  when  I  met  at  the  station  my  mother 
and  my  relatives,  v/ho  had  just  arrived  there,  and  who 
on  that  same  day  were  compelled  to  leave  their  hearth 
and  home  at  the  order  of  the  mihtary  authorities.  Tell 
the  gentlemen  who  sit  on  the  benches  of  the  Right  that 
I  do  not  mourn  my  lost  ann,  but  that  I  do  mourn  deeply 
the  self-respect  that  was  not  denied  to  me  in  alien  lands 
but  is  now  lost  to  me." 

Such  was  the  sentiment  of  the  Jews  that  found  ex- . 
pression  in  numerous  appeals  and  manifestations  in  the 


SPEECH  OF  DEPUTY  FRIEDMAN  113 

press,  and  finally  also  in  this  House.  Surely  these 
sentiments  should  have  been  taken  into  account.  One 
should  have  a  right  to  assume  that  the  Government 
would  adopt  measures  for  the  amelioration  of  the  fate 
of  the  Jews  who  found  themselves  in  the  very  centre  of 
the  war-like  occurrences.  Likewise,  one  should  have 
taken  into  account  the  sentiments  of  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  Jews  who  shed  their  blood  on  the  field  of  battle. 

Instead  of  that,  however,  we  see  that  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  the  measures  of  reprisals  against  the 
Jewish  populace  w^ere  not  only  not  weakened  but,  on  the 
contrary,  made  much  stronger.  Banished  were  Jewish 
men  and  women  whose  husbands,  children,  and  brothers, 
were  shedding  their  blood  for  the  fatherland.  A  wounded 
soldier  named  Alexander  Roskhov,  who  had  been  shot 
in  the  eye,  came  to  Charkof  for  further  treatment.  On 
his  passport  were  the  words,  "To  be  sent  to  a  settle- 
ment." The  private  soldier  Godlewski,  one  of  whose 
legs  had  been  amputated,  and  who  found  himself  at 
Rostof  on  the  Don  for  recuperation,  they  tried  to  send 
to  his  native  village  in  the  Government  of  Kalisch,  al- 
ready under  German  occupation;  and  it  was  only  due 
to  the  activities  of  the  Rural  League  that  he  was  per- 
mitted to  stay.  An  apothecary's  helper,  who  likewise 
had  been  wounded  on  the  battlefield,  was  not  allowed 
to  remain  in  Petrograd  for  his  cure,  and  it  was  only  by 
virtue  of  special  intercession  that  he  was  later  allowed 
to  sojourn  tv/o  months  more  at  Petrograd,  with  the 
notice,  however,  that  at  the  expiration  of  this  period 
no  further  extension  of  his  sojourn  would  be  granted. 

In  a  long  war  lucky  events  alternate  with  unlucky 
ones,  and  in  any  case  it  is  naturally  useful  to  have  scape- 
goats in  reserve.  For  this  purpose  there  exists  the  old 
firm;    the  Jew.     Scarcely  has  the  enemy  reached  our 


114        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

frontiers  when  the  rumor  is  spread  that  Jewish  gold 
is  flowing  over  to  the  Germans,  and  that,  too,  in  aero- 
planes, in  coffins,  and — in  the  entrails  of  geese! 

Scarcely  had  the  enemy  pressed  further,  than  there 
appeared  again  beyond  dispute  the  eternal  Jew  "on  the 
white  horse,''  perhaps  the  same  one  who  once  rode  on  the 
white  horse  through  the  city  in  order  to  provoke  a  pogrom. 
The  Jews  have  set  up  telephones,  have  destroyed  the 
telegraph  lines.  The  legend  grew,  and  with  the  eager 
support  of  the  powers  of  Government  and  the  agitation 
in  official  circles,  assumed  ever  greater  proportions.  A 
series  of  unprecedented,  unheard  of,  cruel  measures  was 
adopted  against  the  Jews.  These  measures,  which  were 
carried  out  before  the  eyes  of  the  entire  population, 
suggested  to  the  people  and  to  the  army  the  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  the  Jews  were  treated  as  enemies  by  the 
Government,  and  that  the  Jewish  population  was  outside 
the  law. 

In  the  first  place  these  measures  consisted  of  the 
complete  transplanting  of  the  Jewish  population  from 
many  districts,  to  the  very  last  man.  These  compulsory 
migrations  took  place  in  the  Kingdom  of  Poland  and  in 
many  other  territories.  All  told,  about  a  half  million 
persons  have  been  doomed  to  a  state  of  beggary  and 
vagabondage.  Anyone  who  has  seen  with  his  own  eyes 
how  these  expulsions  take  place,  will  never  forget  them 
as  long  as  he  lives.  The  exiling  took  place  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  sometimes  within  two  days.  Women,  old 
men,  and  children,  and  sometimes  invalids,  were  ban- 
ished. Even  the  feebleminded  were  taken  from  the 
lunatic  asyliuns  and  the  Jews  were  forced  to  take  these 
with  them.  In  Mohilnitse,  5,000  persons  were  expelled 
within  twenty-four  hours.  Their  way  led  to  Warsaw 
through    Kalwayra.    Meantime    they    were    forced    to 


SPEECH  OF  DEPUTY  FRIEDMAN  115 

travel  across  fields  through  the  Government  of  Lublin, 
and  were  deprived  of  the  possibility  of  taking  along 
their  inventories.  Many  were  obliged  to  travel  on  foot. 
When  they  reached  Lublin,  the  Jewish  Committee  there 
had  provided  bread  and  food  for  them;  but  they  were 
not  allowed  to  tarry,  and  they  had  to  travel  on  at 
once. 

On  the  way  an  accident  occurred;  a  six-year-old 
child  was  killed  by  a  fall.  The  parents  were  not  per- 
mitted to  bury  the  child. 

I  saw  also  the  refugees  of  the  Government  of  Kovno. 
Persons  who  only  yesterday  were  still  accounted  wealthy 
were  beggars  the  next  day.  Among  the  refugees  I  met 
Jewish  women  and  girls,  who  had  worked  together  with 
Russian  women,  had  sewed  garments  with  them  and 
collected  contributions  with  them,  and  who  were  now 
forced  to  encamp  on  the  railway  embankment.  I  saw 
families  of  reservists.  I  saw  among  the  exiles  woimded 
soldiers  wearing  the  Cross  of  St.  George.  It  is  said 
that  Jewish  soldiers  in  marching  through  the  Polish 
cities  were  forced  to  witness  the  expulsion  of  their  wives 
and  children.  The  Jews  were  loaded  in  freight  cars 
like  cattle.  The  bills  of  lading  were  worded  as  follows: 
"Four  hundred  and  fifty  Jews,  en  route  to ." 

There  were  cases  in  which  the  Governors  refused 
outright  to  take  in  the  Jews  at  all.  I  myself  was  in  Vilna 
at  the  very  time  when  a  whole  trainload  of  Jews  was 
stalled  for  four  days  in  Novo-Wilejsk  station.  Those 
were  Jews  who  had  been  sent  from  the  Government  of 
Kovno  to  the  Government  of  Poltawa,  but  the  Governor 
there  would  not  receive  them  and  sent  them  back  to 
Kovno,  whence  they  were  again  reshipped  to  Poltawa. 
Imagine,  at  a  time  when  every  railway  car  is  needed  for 
the  transportation  of  munitions,   when  from  all  sides 


116        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

are  heard  complaints  about  the  lack  of  means  of  trans- 
portation, the  Government  permits  itself  to  do  such  a 
thing!  At  one  station  there  stood  110  freight  cars  con- 
taining Jewish  exiles. 

Another  measure  which  likewise  is  unprecedented 
in  the  entire  history  of  the  civilized  world,  is  the  intro- 
duction of  the  so-called  system  of  ' 'Hostages,"  and, 
indeed,  hostages  were  taken  not  from  the  enemy,  but 
from  the  country's  own  subjects,  its  own  citizens.  Host- 
ages were  taken  in  Radom,  Kieltse,  Lomscha,  Kovno, 
Riga,  Lublin,  etc.  The  hostages  were  held  under  the 
most  rigorous  regime,  and  at  present  there  are  still  under 
arrest  in  Poltava  Jewish  hostages  from  the  Governments 
of  Kieltse  and  Radom. 

Some  time  ago,  in  commenting  upon  the  procedure 
against  the  Jews,  the  leader  of  the  Opposition,  even 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  used  the  expression 
that  we  were  approaching  the  times  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella.  I  now  assert  that  we  have  already  surpassed 
that  era.  No  Jewish  blood  was  shed  in  defence  of  Spain, 
but  ours  flowed  the  moment  the  Jev»^s  helped  defend  the 
Fatherland. 

Yes,  we  are  beyond  the  pale  of  the  laws,  we  are 
oppressed,  we  have  a  hard  life,  but  we  know  the  source 
of  that  evil;  it  comes  from  those  benches  (pointing  to 
the  boxes  of  the  Ministers).  We  are  being  oppressed 
by  the  Russian  Government,  not  by  the  Russian  people. 
Why,  then,  is  it  surprising  if  we  wish  to  unite  our  des- 
tinies, not  with  that  of  the  Russian  Government,  but 
with  that  of  the  Russian  people?  When  three  years 
ago  there  was  pending  here  the  Cholm  law  proposal, 
did  the  thought  ever  occur  at  the  time  to  the  sponsors 
of  the  bill  that  in  a  short  time  they  would  have  to  scrape 
and  bow  before  free  autonomous  Poland?    We  likewise 


SPEECH  OF  BARON  ROSEN  117 

hope  that  the  time  is  not  distant  when  we  can  be  citizens 
of  the  Russian  State  with  full  equality  of  privileges 
with  the  free  Russian  people. 

Before  the  face  of  the  entire  country,  before  the 
entire  civilized  world,  I  declare  that  the  calumnies  against 
the  Jews  are  the  most  repulsive  lies  and  chimeras  of 
persons  who  will  have  to  be  responsible  for  their  crimes. 
[Applause  on  Left.] 

It  depends  upon  you,  gentlemen  of  the  Imperial  Duma, 
to  speak  the  word  of  encouragement,  to  perform  the 
action  that  can  deliver  the  Jewish  people  from  the  terrible 
plight  in  which  it  is  at  present,  and  that  can  lead  them 
back  into  the  ranks  of  the  Russian  citizens  who  are 
defending  their  Fatherland.     [Cries  of  "Right."] 

I  do  not  know  if  the  Imperial  Duma  will  so  act,  but  if 
it  does  so  act  it  will  be  fulfilling  an  obligation  of  honor 
and  an  act  of  wise  statesmanship  that  is  necessary  for  the 
profit  and  for  the  greatness  of  the  Fatherland.  [Applause 
on  the  Left.] 

m. 

ABSTRACT   OF  SPEECH   OF  BARON  R.  R.  ROSEN 
IN  THE   COUNCIL   OF  THE  EMPIRE* 

August  22  (September  4),  1915 

(Translation    from   ''Retch,"   No.   231,   August   23 
(September  5),  1915) 

Baron  Rosen  began  with  the  statement  that  while 
the  question  of  supplies  for  the  army  and  navy  was 
paramount,  there  was  nevertheless  another  side  to  it, 
and  that  was  the  question  of  the  domestic  policy  of  the 

*  Baron  Rosen  was  formerly  Russian  Ambasaarlor  to  the  United  States. 


118        THE  JEWS  IN  THE  EASTERN   WAR  ZONE 

Empire.  He  reminded  his  hearers  that  in  May,  1913, 
he  had  warned  the  Council  of  the  Empire  of  the  catas- 
trophe imminent  in  Europe,  but  that  his  statement 
had  been  met  with  ridicule  and  skepticism.  The  result 
of  such  an  attitude  in  now  obvious  to  all.  In  this  great 
conflict,  it  has  become  clear  that  neither  side  will  be 
able  to  crush  the  other,  as  was  expected  at  the  outset 
of  this  war.  But  even  as  it  is,  this  war  of  extermination 
of  the  white  race  must,  in  the  end,  be  decided  in  favor 
of  one  of  the  two  parties  at  conflict.  He  thought  that 
certain  intangible  elements  entering  into  the  question 
would  be  of  great  importance  in  the  settlement  of  this 
war.  Putting  aside  the  political,  economic  and  psychol- 
ogical questions  that  led  to  this  conflict,  he  thought 
that  the  ultimate  issue  was  the  decision  of  the  world 
to  battle  against  the  dictum  of  Germany  that  "might 
is  greater  than  right  and  right  is  created  only  by  might." 
Under  the  circumstances,  it  would  seem  that  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  entire  world  should  be  on  the  side  of  the 
allies.  But  in  reality  this  is  not  the  case;  and  for  this 
there  are  several  reasons. 

"It  is  undoubtedly  within  our  power  to  do  away  with 
one  of  the  factors  militating  against  us  in  the  public 
opinion  of  neutral  countries.  In  the  struggle  that  we, 
together  with  the  most  civilized  nations  of  Europe,  are 
waging  against  the  Pan-Germanism,  imperiaUsm  and 
absolutism,  and  for  right  and  justice,  for  the  liberty 
and  independence  of  the  weaker  nations,  we  shall  achieve 
the  full  sympathy  of  the  civilized  world  only  when  we 
shall  have  put  our  inner  front — if  I  may  use  that  expres- 
sion— on  a  level  with  the  political  ideology  of  our  valiant 
allies;  for  instance,  in  the  conduct  of  our  polity  with 
reference  to  the  borderlands,  and  the  so-called  alien 
races  composing  its  population." 


SPEECH  OF  BARON  ROSEN  119 

After  stating  that  there  were  two  diametrically  opposed 
political  systems,  one  current  among  the  Allies  and  the 
other  among  the  Germans,  Baron  Rosen  continued: 

"To  the  maximum  injury  of  the  true  interests  of  Russia, 
we  have  adopted  and  have  carried  out  unswervingly  the 
true  German  system  of  politics  with  reference  to  our 
borderlands  and  the  so-called  foreign  races  and  foreign 
faiths,  a  policy  which  has  been  made  even  more  perfect 
by  the  admixture  of  medieval  religious  intolerance. 

^'It  may  be  retorted  that  the  fate  of  a  campaign  is 
decided  by  military  power  and  not  by  the  greater  or 
lesser  sympathy  of  neutral  countries  for  the  policy  of 
a  given  state.  The  German  Government  does  not  think 
so;  for  otherwise  it  would  not  spend  countless  millions 
for  pan-German  propaganda  in  all  the  countries  of  the 
world,  even  the  most  remote.  But  we,  on  the  other 
hand,  not  only  fail  to  oppose  anything  to  this  propa- 
ganda, but  by  the  course  of  our  domestic  poUcies  we  place 
in  the  hands  of  this  propaganda  powerful  argmnents 
for  arousing  against  us  public  opinion  of  such  countries 
as  the  United  States,  the  only  great  neutral  power,  and 
of  Sweden,  our  neighbor. 

**It  is  inconceivable  that  the  framers  of  oiir  policy 
should  fail  to  realize  that  the  propaganda  directed  against 
us,  conducted  under  official  auspices  and  equipped  with 
the  amplest  resources,  will  scarcely  cause  our  own  inter- 
ests and  the  interests  of  our  Allies  one-tenth  of  the  harm 
which  is  caused  to  these  interests  by  our  attitude  towards 
the  Jewish  population  of  Russia  and  our  systematic 
violation  of  the  legal  conscience  of  the  Finnish  population 
— an  attitude  which  smacks  of  the  dark  times  of  medie- 
valism. 

"The  question  now  is,  why  did  not  the  Government 
find  it  possible  to  put  an  end  to  this  problem  decisively 


120        THE  JEWS  IN   THE  EASTERN  WAR  ZONE 

and  forever,  as  it  has  finally,  and,  alas,  with  such  delay, 
settled  the  question  of  the  autonomy  of  Poland?  This 
may  be  explained  only  by  the  fact  that  the  Government 
hesitated  to  break  with  the  traditional  policy  so  dear 
to  the  militant  nationalism. 

"Accordingly  the  Duma  and  the  Council  are  in  duty 
bound  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  Government  in  this 
regard  and  take  upon  themselves  the  initiative  of  intro- 
ducing a  bill  for  the  abolition  of  all  laws  restricting  the 
rights  of  the  Jews  and  for  the  abrogation  of  the  law  of 
July  17  (30)  concerning  Finland.  The  passage  of  these 
measures  would  undoubtedly  lighten  the  heavy  task 
now  confronting  the  Government  in  the  sphere  of  inter- 
national relations  and  it  would  be  met  by  our  valiant 
allies  with  the  liveliest  satisfaction. 

"We  must  remember  that  this  great  European  war 
is  not  only  a  struggle  of  interests,  but  is  also  a  struggle 
of  ideas  and  principles.  In  the  battle  against  German 
militarism,  Russia  has  placed  herself  on  the  side  of  right 
and  freedom,  and  for  the  triumph  of  the  idea  for  which 
we  are  now  fighting,  it  is  necessary  that  in  Russia,  too, 
there  should  be  no  longer  any  people  without  rights  or 
any  people  oppressed." 


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